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Dear Ken and Erik, Good point about importance of judgement in design. It brings in the question of how humans actually make judgements. To chip in an alternative two-penneth, it appears to me Cognitive Science and Social Sciences are limited in how they can do this becasue much of the process is highly dependent on feelings, emotional processes, and the feelings and changes to sense of self that result from emotion responses to external and internal imagogenic perceptions. As far as I can see, judgement processes cannot be adequately explained in terms of the properties of objects or situations, human values, or of cognitive constructs (the calculator problem in both cases). They can provide some correlatory information helpful for exploratory insights but fuller explanation and causal theory requires looking at the internal physiological processes by which humans undertake judgement. I feel it is now necessary to be very cautious of the work of earlier theorists including early classical authors. These are radical times. The new means of looking at human issues in a psycho-neuro-physiological way were not available in earlier times and to a large extent, the work of earlier theorists can be seen as building of inherently compromised theory to try to make up for the emprical weakness. Epistemologically, the problem is simple. The externalist theories or theories based on properties of social situations and objects (or human values) simply cannot adeqautely explain human processes and behaviours becasue in almost all cases these factors are not directly and dependably related to how humans function. Phronesis depends on judgement, and the label of 'wisdom' is usually used to refer to the skill of a person who is able regularly to make good judgements. Making theory about the relationship between the three also depends on understanding the neuro-physiological processes that underpin humans' judgement. This also offers good insights into making coherent and reliable radical theories about both phronesis and wisdom. Cheers, Terry === Dr. Terence Love Love Design and Research PO Box 226 Quinns Rocks Western Australia, 6030 [log in to unmask] ===