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Dear Teena, Ken and others I think Richard Rorty had a very good take on exactly some of the issues that are at stake here, which avoids the kind of infinite regress or self-destruct Ken points to. Accounts of power, society, institutions, relations, people, Foucault's, Simone de Beuavoir's, Melvilles, Machiavelli's, Nabokov's and also Orwell's have all achieved certain (pragmatic) purposes in terms of informing us about how the world is (and might be - although Nabokov thought Orwell was topical trash). Realist historical accounts, films, statistical records, can achieve similar purposes - and it is ultimate purposes that are in point when we wheel in pragmatism. One of the very negative consequences of relativism (and this is NOT the case with pragmatism) is that the holocaust, climate change, etc., become undecidable and ultimately trivial questions. What we want, surely, is the opportunity to consider how personal stories, statistics, film, stills, other forms of research might together contribute to demonstrating what went on so that the death of millions or of the planet does not go unchallenged or unabsolved since that kind of moral IS in point. Thus, reasonable, valid, etc., might be exchanged for useful (for whatever it is we - liberal democrats and others who share our vision of freedom and very basic justice - want to achieve). Rorty often got into conversation with the poststructuralists and other thinkers - Habermas, Derrida, Foucault (and Proust, Wittgenstein, Davidson), that he admired for shaking things up but certainly not for offering the final method and interpretation of the world that mattered. Philosophy and Social Hope is a great read about the democratic and political consequences of pragmatism. Shortly before his death, he wrote a piece called "The Fire of Life," (published in the November 2007 issue of Poetry Magazine)[5], in which he meditates on his diagnosis and the comfort of poetry. He concludes, "I now wish that I had spent somewhat more of my life with verse. This is not because I fear having missed out on truths that are incapable of statement in prose. There are no such truths; there is nothing about death that Swinburne and Landor knew but Epicurus and Heidegger failed to grasp. Rather, it is because I would have lived more fully if I had been able to rattle off more old chestnuts — just as I would have if I had made more close friends." from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Rorty Dr Gavin Melles Lecturer, Research Degree Skills Faculty of Design Swinburne University of Technology Mob (03) 0402927278 >>> Ken Friedman <[log in to unmask]> 01/22/08 17:27 PM >>> Dear Teena, To me, the claim that "all writing is fiction" leads to an infinite regress. If all writing is fiction, then why is Foucauld's take on power relations any more reasonable or reliable than that of Simone de Beauvoir or Herman Melville? If all writing is fiction, then why would we wish to bother with any account whatsoever? Why would any account be more useful or illuminating than any other? If all writing is fiction, why would a post-structuralist account be more useful than an empiricist account or a cognitive account? When we ask for an account of what people witness, hear, say, or experience, we ask for integrity and reliability, not "validity." This is not a matter of "proof." It is a matter of asking the author to describe what is said, a responsible account of what others say. To argue that "all writing is fiction" is to that that we have no responsibility to the voices of those whose stories we recount. When we recount the voices of other speakers, the words that we report demand responsible reporting. This is not "proof," but responsibility. Yours, Ken -- Teena Clerke wrote: (1) my intention was to provide an opening for discussion about design research epistemology without introducing the construct of 'gender', but by removing the actual bodies themselves. I saw this as a poststructuralistto see what people imagined design research might look like if either men or women were removed from its practice. This asks for an entirely different kind of imagining other than the binary of men/women. In a Foucauldian sense, power and knowledge are interrelated within the social relations between people and are (re)produced within discourses. So, I thought if you take out the bodies, what kind of discursive imagining would ensue? (2) Fiona talks about her embodied experiences in design research, sitting through meetings and listening to the various ways in design is perceived in a large faculty. I am curious to hear of others' personal experiences, and particularly welcome those not based on 'proof'. In this call, I do not wish to debate 'validity' because from my epistemological position, all writing is fiction. -- Ken Friedman Professor Dean, Swinburne Design Swinburne University of Technology Melbourne, Australia