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Dear Lars, Klaus and Guy, It may be helpful in exploring this idea to look first at history. The origins of many of these ideas are in mathematics, which as mathema or mathematika in Greek means 'knowledge' or 'that which is learnt'. Mathematics in earlier times, contained the disciplines which emerged from mathematics to be what was later known as the Quadrivium from which we got the current disciplines - including art and design. As Klaus' claims, language is important in discussing concepts. Mathematics is THE language specifically designed for the purpose of working with concepts and theories to develop knowledge. Much of how we create and use concepts was developed in the early mathematics between 3000BC and the end of the Greek empire which is the time that records indicate deductive reasoning spread from mathematics into the other fields including what would become the arts, humanities and social sciences. An ability with mathematics in its fuller form offers substantial insights into much of what is discussed in qualitative terms relation to design and design research. You might see the situation as follows: It may be that trying to develop and discuss academic and practical ideas without using mathematical thinking is like, and about as efficient as, Trying to understand the ideas of the Humanities, Social Sciences and Arts without being able to read or understand words. Fortunately, many people use basic mathematical ideas and concepts (often without being aware that they are doing so) and it is this that enables discussion and analysis in those disciplines and fields that claim to be not mathematical. As I've suggested before, it is worth exploring how mathematics offers substantial benefits for Art and Design and the fields on which they draw. Best wishes for the New Year, Terry == Dr Terence Love MICA, PMACM, MAISA, FDRS, AMIMechE Director Design Out Crime & CPTED Centre Perth, Western Australia [log in to unmask] www.designoutcrime.org +61 (0)4 3497 5848 == ORCID 0000-0002-2436-7566 -----Original Message----- From: [log in to unmask] [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Guy Keulemans Sent: Tuesday, 2 January 2018 11:06 AM To: PhD-Design - This list is for discussion of PhD studies and related research in Design <[log in to unmask]> Subject: Re: The concept of concept? I really like Klaus’ contribution to this discussion because it corresponds with what I have observed in the work of students putting together concepts for design proposals. The ‘togetherness’ quality of concepts suggests to me that concepts are arrangements of 2 or more ideas, usually more, and hopefully in novel configurations. They are productive intersections of ideas that facilitate human communication. But I think this communication between individuals is not an essential component of a concept, rather that concepts are prepared for communication by virtue of arising from an interior correspondence between ideas within the brain. This seems to follow what Deleuze & Guattari claim in the chapter What is a Concept? in What is Philosophy? (ignoring for the moment that their definition of a concept comprises one of the three major parts of a broader metaphysics), D&G argue there is “no concept with only one component”. Concepts are more complex than just ideas, whether general or abstract. Klaus said concepts are “not strictly” cognitive phenomena. I would say they are usefully distinguishable from sensory perceptions and the affects that comprise aesthetics. Concepts are higher level, though they depend on sensory phenomena for themselves to be sensed, and so there is an aesthetics of concepts –they have an aesthetic quality–, for example, concepts that are felt to be elegant or clean (e.g form follows function), messy and wild, or even horrific (e.g Munchausen’s Syndrome by Proxy, which is a concept as much as it is a psychiatric disorder). There can also be concepts of aesthetics, which are found in philosophies of aesthetics. Returning to concepts as productive intersections of several ideas, I’ve found this is a pragmatically useful definition for students in the early stages of a project. It can be used with mind maps to help create concepts by encouraging them to link up distant ideas branching differently from the one topic. best Guy Dr Guy Keulemans UNSW | Art & Design UNSW AUSTRALIA Paddington Campus Cnr Oxford St & Greens Rd, Paddington, NSW 2021 Phone +61 (2) 8936 0770 Email [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]> Web guykeulemans.com<http://guykeulemans.com/> On 31 Dec 2017, at 3:15 pm, Krippendorff, Klaus <[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>> wrote: Lars, This is a good question to explore. To me concepts are cognitive abstractions derived from language. There are only two points I wish to make the first I etymological The terms is traced back to 1554-60, derived from Latin "conceptum," "something conceived." It's stem is shared with "received," "deceived," and "perceived." All of them have something to do with formations in the mind. However, the prefix "con" links concepts with togetherness. So conceptions can be said to be collaborative cognition. My other comment has to do with Eleanor Rosh's work who studied three kinds of conceptions: (1) we use prototypes to define a class of visualizable phenomena by how prototypical they are. For example, in the U.S. the Robbin is close to the prototypical bird. When we see a bird we describe it by how it differs from that prototype by pointing out its untypical qualities, for example, having a red beak, long legs, etc. A penguin is a bird by scientific definitions but it is very far from a typical, in folk conceptions, not a bird. Accordingly, we can never see A chair but judge what affords us sitting by its protototypicality. (2) adding details to prototype, we qualify chairs by adjectives or uses like baby chair, dining room chairs, or office chairs. (3) Abstracting from prototypes are talk of concepts that are no longer visualizable, like furniture. Designer who talk of design concepts tend to talk of visualizable but not yet observable phenomena, like guides or models. What links my second point to the first is that con-cepts always emerge among people in interactions, using language to explain what they have in mind doing. Concepts are cannot dispense of cognition but heavily depend on the tropes provided in the language used to talk of them. They are not strictly cognitive phenomena. Klaus ----------------------------------------------------------------- PhD-Design mailing list <[log in to unmask]> Discussion of PhD studies and related research in Design Subscribe or Unsubscribe at https://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/phd-design ----------------------------------------------------------------- ----------------------------------------------------------------- PhD-Design mailing list <[log in to unmask]> Discussion of PhD studies and related research in Design Subscribe or Unsubscribe at https://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/phd-design -----------------------------------------------------------------