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Hi Ken & All I have enjoyed this thread and the idea of all writing as fiction ... there is some work that addresses fictive languages, fictive arguments and fictive interactions- (mainly theory from Spanish speaking institutions I believe). According to this work much of our language and culture is concerned with fictives while fictive engagements are increasingly the most prominent aspects of social life. The statements you can find me in the phonebook or I am on the Phd List are a good examples- because I am not and can never be in these places ... I am actually here on an office chair constructing a language event on the list using an interface which encodes and decodes my movements. We often use fictive conversations because they are most meaningful - and can be described as one of the best ways to convey or reveal the truth of an event. The fictive conversation between a lawyer and witness is an excellent example ... we all know such a conversation is fabricated for a judging audience ... but this is the universal mode we rely on because it reveals truth ... yet like writing the skill in fabricating these conversations plays a part in convincing us while our social attunement skews our attention to aspects of this fiction that defines the limits of our certainty - so events are seen as more or less probable... however truth may be discerned regardless of the actual or fictive nature of the experience. I often feel that the actuality of events has little relevance to the ways most European understanding is presented given the habitual mind - matter split ... theory seems to be a most useful fictive device - so is the blueprint of my car. No writing is actual it is all fictive which it must be otherwise writing the words "stubbed my toe" would hurt ... it is through this fictive context that the truth of things often becomes very apparent. The relation between fiction and fictive is crucial here because books are actual things ... I know I was once hit with one for being cheeky ... anthropology will tell us that all cultures think-through things ... that is ... culture fabricates objects as coactive devices; things that impel thinking modes for a group. Some of these objects are actual but they are all fabricated and a few regardless of their actuality or fiction are true to the cultural mode that informs their making. Norm ________________________________ From: PhD-Design - This list is for discussion of PhD studies and related research in Design on behalf of Ken Friedman Sent: Tue 22/01/2008 8:16 PM To: [log in to unmask] Subject: Re: Is all writing fiction? Dear Teena, What you've said here seems reasonable to me. I tended to agree with other notes here, too -- Chris, Gavin, Richard Rorty, Keith and Duann. What I did NOT agree with (and still don't) is that all writing is fiction. What you've written here is quite different. Without agreeing completely with your position, I certainly accept that we wrtie from perspecgives and that our perspectives influence the way we recount what others have said. Within that frame, I am still ready to argue that we owe a responsible effort to the voices we recount, and an attempt to sort out their stories and words from our interpretations. One thing I often bring up in research seminars is that the words we place in quotation marks belong to the authors of those words. The statements and beliefs we atribute to others belong to them. Our analysis of what we quote and our intepretations of their statements and beliefs belong to us. As a lapsed would-be theologian, my organs of truth may have withered. As someone who knows enough to check that something is in a source document before attributing it to the cited author, I do make claims to reasoned responsibility. Having just reviewed a load of papers for a project where Chris also reviewed some of the same load, I hope he's willing to agree that it is this kind of thing that I am speaking of rather than absolute truth. If we're genuinely ready to recognize that writing has different purposes, reasons, styles, and media, then we cannot argue that all writing is fiction. That was the provocative statement that provoked my comment. Like Richard Rorty, I too wish I'd read more poetry. Perhaps one day we will meet and discuss it. Hobbes the Tiger says that when we die, if we have been good, we shall go to a honky-tonk in New Orleans where the piano player is especially good. That's the Hobbes who belonged to Calvin the cartoon, not the stuffed tiger who belonged to Calvin the Calvinist. I'm guessing that is where Richard Rorty is right now, and that is where I hope to meet him. Presumably Chris Rust will be there tickling the ivories. Yours, Ken On Tue, 22 Jan 2008 19:49:30 +1100, teena clerke <[log in to unmask]> wrote: >Dear Ken, > >In research events, the act of 'recounting the voices of others', >involves the researcher in a multitude of ways, however, this is not >often acknowledged in research writing. By arranging the event for >the purposes of the research, through the question/s asked, within >the relations of power between researcher and interviewee (the >researcher is often understood as being more powerful because by >asking questions, interpreting answers, and 'writing up' the event, >they get to choose what counts as 'knowledge'), and in many other >ways. See references below for much better explanations. > >Again, this is my epistemological position. And again, it is a >provocation, depending on your position. In writing this, I am >constructing this account for the purpose of establishing my point of >view, as a product of my experience, in the context of what has >already been written so far, and within the meaning-making community >in which I am socialised. And thus it is a kind of fiction. It is not >'true', just as a philosopher's writing is not 'true', as it depends >on one's understanding of 'truth' or 'reality'. However, from my >position, if an account 'rings true' (an expression for feeling like >it's more or less what one believes) for me when I read it, then it >has integrity and is reliable for me, and perhaps also for others. >This is of course, context-dependent. > >In calling for others to tell stories of their experiences, I may >then interpret and make judgements about whether the stories 'ring >true' for me. But either way, they are stories, constructed within >the specific context of this discussion. Yes, there will be bias >(even as one might attempt objectivity), yes, there will be >embellishment, yes, there will be omission, yes, there will be >rhetoric, yes, there will be narrative convention. As in all writing. >Hence, all writing is fiction of a kind. > >Ethically, the 'responsible recounting' of the research event that >you demand is dependent on the researcher's ethics, the purpose of >the research, to what knowledge product it may be applied and whose >interests it serves. As Gavin has suggested 'reasonable or valid >might be exchanged for useful', when making decisions about what >counts as knowledge, and my position is not 'more useful or >illuminating than any other'. I am however, interested in reading >about other people's stories of their experience in design, >particularly graphic design or visual communication, and particularly >in the university, women and men. > >cheers, teena > > > >Rhodes, C. 2000, 'Ghostwriting Research: Positioning the Researcher >in the Interview Text', Qualitative Inquiry, vol. 6, no. 2, p. 511-25. > >Scheurich, J.J., 1997, Research Method in the Modern, The Falmer Press, London.