Ken,

Although I've kept the same subject line, I will only deal with the
"Swanson's Objections" part and I can only do that briefly right now.
Pardon me if that brevity results in a rather roughly worded (perhaps
in more than one sense) post.

I will not really deal with your accusation that my post was
inappropriate for this list since I do not have an opinion on the
appropriateness. I am, however, suspicious of your statement for
several reasons. One is that you clearly (and, perhaps, deliberately)
misunderstood me: I did not suggest a discussion of vocational
education; I am not sure if that accusation was a rhetorical device
or a misreading. I was challenging Terry's statement which
characterized design. This didn't strike me as irrelevant to design
research or doctoral education in design.

One other reason is that when you have upbraided me in the past for
such transgressions I have received off-list posts supporting my
positions and telling me that your tirades and sweeping declarations
were keeping people from posting freely. Perhaps you are the best
arbiter of appropriate statements. Perhaps not. If others post me (on
or off list) and ask me to shut up I will gladly do so.

Your point is either unavoidably correct or moronically tautological.
If design is defined as the planning process and related activities
are not design then clearly design is a planning process and related
activities are marginal to design. I've got to give you that one.

Continuing based on your definition--doctoral study about design
should be, presumably, about the planning process (i.e., design) and
any study or consideration of artisanal, craft, or other approaches
must therefor be the study of something other than design. (One would
wonder about demands to narrow the scope of a field which barely
exists.)

In case it isn't abundantly clear, I think your definition is
stunted, arid, and at once self-defeatingly narrow and
unilluminatingly broad. That would be no problem for me were it not
for the fact that you seem to be trying to establish your definition
as the official academic area of study and this field would, if
successful, define design and design education in the university.

Would my statement make you any more or less happy if, rather than
saying "design would be as seriously harmed by pretending that the
object is not the point as it is by pretending that it is the only
point" I changed one word, giving us "design would be as seriously
harmed by pretending that the object is never the point as it is by
pretending that it is the only point"? I suspect not.

Gunnar
--
Gunnar Swanson Design Office
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