 |
 |
Keith, My three years of classical Greek in high school is of no use me to other than reading street signs aloud in Crete. But the reason we need to rely on people like Burnyeat is that he does read Greek, and actually, his argument revolves around a mistranslation (he explains), and offers the new translation of enthymeme as a "syllogism of a type" rather than "a type of syllogism." Again, no need to go into it now, but the reason this should be of interest to the wider forum is that Aristotle is wondering why we should bother listening "to the second speaker." Zeno boldly said (I'm paraphrasing) that the first guy either made his case or he didn't. So there's no need to listen to a counter argument. Aristotle found this unconvincing and most of modern democrats would find it sort of shocking. So he was wondering, why SHOULD we listen to another argument? What kinds of arguments — worthy of our serious consideration — can come from anything other an a definitive case? And so ethymemic argumentation (but only since Burnyeat!) helps us understand the kind of arguments we make every day, and I think are the kinds of cases we make in design. It seems to me that there is a connection to be made between enthymemes and pragmatic acts in design. That is, "this is convincing, and this is productive" even if not "scientific" and even if not perfect. So while we're back to Aristotle here, I think we're still on the same topic about generating design theory for productive and responsible action. d. _________________ Dr. Derek B. Miller Director The Policy Lab 321 Columbus Ave. Seventh Floor of the Electric Carriage House Boston, MA 02116 United States of America Phone +1 617 440 4409 Twitter @Policylabtweets Web www.thepolicylab.org On Friday, April 1, 2011 at 10:48 AM, Keith Russell wrote: > Dear Derek, > > thanks for the Burnyeat reference - I had not read that piece - a quick look, on Google Books, has given me a bit of a head ache (I don't have any Greek), but I think I got the major points and I feel I am back in Aristotle - he is quite easy to read even if I am missing some of the subtlety that a reader of Greek would pick up. I would have taken great value from a formal course in rhetoric as an undergraduate but in Australia, rhetoric is a dirty word. > > Yes, I can go a long way with the idea that Design is a form of pragmatism which could mean that the US is an ideal home for design thinking but this balloon has great trouble getting above table height. Yes, there is James and Dewey and Peirce but in spite of their differences, and in spite of their connections with German Idealism (oh no, here come the thought police to singe my hair), and in spite of Maholy Nagy, US design doesn't seem to know what to do with pragmatism. > > But hey, it does know what to do with Emerson and Thoreau or Whitman and Imagism. > > Enough of complaints - I will go back to Aristotle and refresh my mind. > > cheers > > keith > > > > > > "Derek B. Miller" <[log in to unmask]> 01/04/11 6:55 PM >>> > Keith. > > That point about enthymemes is wonderful. Have you seen M.F. Burnyeat's 1996 piece called, "Enthymeme: Aristotle on the Rationality of Rhetoric?" That was the point that fundamentally affected my thinking on forms of valid argumentation. It's in a book edited by Rorty called Artistotle's Rhetoric. It's just wonderful. To space others, I'll refrain from a synopsis. > > Just after Pierce we have William James, and all of this (including Andy's post) is getting me thinking about design as a form of pragmatism. Certain types of arguments; certain types of evidence; certain types of reasoning; and certain modalities of working are — or are not — generative, productive and "satisfactory" in a given (situated) act of design. > > My quip about "design thinking" earlier might better be rephrased this way: The conversation we are having (circuitous though it may be) at least clusters around a genuine effort to find grounds for making claims about design as practice, and design theory. What see "design thinking" (ala IDEO and Stanford) doing is prosyletizing a reified approach to thinking and acting, and asking for "buy in." That is not building theory, and I'll stand my by earlier claim that all this is serious when it impacts others. > > d. > > _____________ > Derek B. Miller > Director > > The Policy Lab > 321 Columbus Ave. > Seventh Floor of the Electric Carriage House > Boston, MA 02116 > United States of America > > Phone > +1 617 440 4409 > Twitter > @Policylabtweets > Web > www.thepolicylag.org > > On Friday, April 1, 2011 at 1:55 AM, Keith Russell wrote: > > Dear Terry, > > > > yes, a guess, but also a taking away. That is, one can make another > > guess within a cycle of induction/deduction. Which will take us into the > > areas of grounded theory and most forms of literary analysis (read the > > book, think about it, make a guess, read the book again, take away the > > first guess, guess again based on the first guess and the second > > reading, read the book etc.) > > > > As Wiki tells us: > > > > The philosopher Charles Sanders Peirce (pronounced /*p*rs/ like > > "purse") (1839*1914) introduced abduction into modern logic. Over the > > years he called such inference hypothesis, abduction, presumption, and > > retroduction. He considered it a topic in logic as a normative field in > > philosophy, not in purely formal or mathematical logic, and eventually > > as a topic also in economics of research. > > > > The retroduction covers this sense of taking away the starting point > > and reinforces the AB part of ab-duction. > > > > I take Peirce's approach to be similar to that of Aristotle, in the > > Rhetoric. That is, Peirce is attempting to account for how we all go > > about the business of reasoning and he comes up with abduction; > > Aristotle is attempting to account for how we mostly go about arguing > > and he comes up with the the Enthymeme (a syllogism minus one of its > > arguments because the audience assumes the missing bit). Enthymeme > > means: to have in the mind. > > > > So I guess they were both being pragmatists? > > > > cheers > > > > keith > > > > > > Hi Fil, Andy and all, > > Peirce was perhaps the main original proponent and definer of > > abduction. > > His definition of 'abduction' was 'to guess' - nothing more complex. > > This suggests that the value of the concept of abduction is limited in > > design research unless one creates a whole lot more theory > > sophistication > > about the activity of 'making a guess'. > > In which case, using the term (and concept of) 'abduction' (with its > > limited meaning) isn't that helpful. > > Best wishes, > > Terry >