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Dear All In connection with Ken's post re the misuse of terms: I find it interesting how different people can interpret the same word or term in different ways. I'm sure that we have all come across this. What does not change (or at least that much) is the very fundamental way that one may understand certain terms in design, especially in practice-based design. In our latest staff newsletter is an article about a short course in sewing to members of the Amy Biehl Foundation Trust. Mrs. Ntsane from Guguletu said: "I know that I will be able to apply what I have learned here, because what I see I may forget, but what I do, I will remember." The point is, "verstehen" may, after all, mean "theory of action" in the sense that Mrs. Ntsane meant it, and in the sense that teaching design understanding - through the application of (mix of theory and practice) principles - is a kind of "theory of action" = design theory is close to action theory, is close to action learning. Design understanding (given that to teach "understanding" is very difficult if not impossible, in any straightforward manner) can be made easier through "verstehen" - in Afrikaans it is "verstaan", meaning understand, or know, or getting-to-know. This last is a coming-into-being of an understanding of design, through doing something, whether that something is applying the practical principles of design or writing and structuring words, to "make it knowable" to yourself and to others. A PhD in design could look at this "designerly way" of seeing things - through "verstehen" - by perhaps considering some form of "theory of action" coupled of course to design understanding (also meaning contribution to knowledge), and ultimately allowing the reader of the PhD thesis, through a "verstehen of action", to get-to-know (and then to "understand") the work itself. As for the term positivism, I have alway been under the impression (I may have been reading the "wrong" stuff) that positivism is not a "good term" in the sense that it seems to be used to make what too often sounds like categorical statements about states of the world, and in design you cannot do that (at least not as if this "statement" is the only, final, definitive one). In terms of design logical positivism seems to fit better, however contradictory that may sound. Design is a social conversation, and that is illogically logical. If logical positivism uses symbolic "logic" and emphasizes the problems of language use, then I am all for it. Design is, like a social system, based on symbolic "logic" -which logic may be irrational, arbitrary etc. but still make perfect sense - and above all based on the system of language (again symbolic) that any given culture uses to express itself. This is just thinking out loud. Johann