Dear Rosan,

I'm not quite sure how to respond to your comment. Reviewing the archive, I
see few research requests and fewer compilations. This suggests to me that
the members of this list do not use this kind of process as often as people
do in some groups. Perhaps I can allay your concerns by responding to your
comment.

>Indeed, the contribution and the compilation of articles and books related
>to
>philsophy and design are something very good and very useful ... but in a
>twisted
>way.

If you see a research request and a compilation of first-round responses for
what it is, I can't see how this compilation is useful "in a twisted way."
To label the list "twisted" suggests that you are looking too hard for the
distorting effect of perceptions. For the most part, perceptions don't show
up here because nearly no one here is doing more than sharing suggestions
and views. (There are a few exceptions. Dr. Galle's call for papers contains
a literature review of 44 key items published prior to his call, and Prof.
Friedman sent a paper specifically on the topic with a warning to say he'd
write the paper in a different way today. Three or four others such as Dr.
Tonkinwise and Dr. Kommonen offered comments, but these were not
comprehensive and they only offered selected views on specific issues. The
rest were raw, unintepreteted lists.)

>1
>i think that this list of books and articles is very good and very useful
>because
>it reflects our different fundamental assumptions of design(ing) at the
>present.

It is difficult to say what the responses to a research request mean. It is
also difficult to say whether or how this list reflects any kinds of
assumptions about design or designing, fundamental or not.

I asked for suggestions. People responded swiftly. I suspect that if people
were told that their response would be scrutinized for inferential evidence
of fundamental assumptions, they would have sent very different
contributions. The only kinds of assumptions I can draw from this list are
extremely limited -- for example, five people with different views all agree
that Albert Borgmann is a philosopher whose work applies to philosophy and
design. Beyond that, no one says why they believe this. If you read
Borgmann's books, of course, you'll see that he is one of the few important
philosophers who makes these issues a core theme in his work, so the one
assumption I can derive from this common suggestion by five different
contributors is that these five contributors know the philosophical
literature well enough to agree on the fact that Borgmann is a central
author in this field. Where two contributors mention Herbert Simon, one of
the two cites David Ricardo as useful and the other draws on Adam Smith.
This is not enough to tell us much about their views on economics applied to
philosophy and design. It's also clear that some people go out of their way
to offer citations for authors without regard to whether they agree with
those authors.

I know we've bumped heads before, Rosan, and I don't want this to lead to a
heated exchange, but I can't see what kinds of assumptions these responses
reveal on design or designing.

>2
>i suggest that we are not to take this list as the canon and put it on the
>pedastal to admire worship, and follow ... but rather

No one suggested this as the beginning of a canon. In the list archives, I
found two or three discussions that attempt to propose a canon or a common
ground. Fair enough, if that's what you want to do. That's not what I did. I
asked for useful readings in philosophy and design.

This is not a large enough compilation or well structured enough to
consitute a canon. Several contributors haven't even finished their
response. This is a first round of at least two, and new contributions may
shift or expand the compilation dramatically.

One of the things that I have been puzzled by in reading some comments or
papers on philosophy and design in other places is the appalling ignorance
demonstrated by authors who seem to take the view that philosophy is so
empty of useful content that the intersection of philosophy and design can
be explained by locating their position on design and placing it at the
intersection of ideas represented by a few quotes from their favorite
philosopher. These lists don't represent that kind of approach. If they did,
I'd be worried about talisman worship and a fetish cult. Fortunately,
nothing like that is visible in the compilation.

>3
>i suggest that we need to unpack the assumptions that underlie the choices
>of
>these books and articles and subject them to critical analysis.

Again, I would argue that there is not enough of anything here to unpack.
Before you unpack assumptions, you have to have enough comments on a topic
to read the assumptions. You're making assumptions about assumptions on very
scanty evidence.

The very few assumptions that can be drawn here lie on the surface. Prof.
Poldma sent part of the reference list from his doctoral dissertation. We
may safely infer from this, therefore, that this list is relevant to the
assumptions and topics of his doctoral research. Since this IS a doctoral
dissertation at a good university, we may also assume that Prof. Poldma
rather rigorously excluded potentially interesting references that were
irrelevant or could not be applied.

What else can we assume? We can assume that Dr. Galle has an extensive and
deep reading behind him. The fact that Design Studies entusted him with a
special issue on this topic would make this a fairly safe assumption. We can
assume that Prof. Friedman reads widely and draws on a slightly broader
literature than others do. (Around my house, the Cardinals are a baseball
team.) We can assume that Dr. Nelson and Prof. Stolterman co-authored the
book they both cited. These are safe assumptions.

Before I'd start unpacking assumptions, I'd want enough to read to draw
conclusions on the assumptions I'm unpacking.

>4
>i maintain that it is through executing point 3, can we advance our
>understanding
>on design(ing).

My response to your third point is that there is not enough material in the
compilation to infer assumptions about how we understand design and
designing. There is not enough here to infer the views of a handful of
contributors, and certainly not enough to infer the views of the full
membership of the list.

It logically follows that you can't advance understanding by unpacking
assumptions that can't be inferred from the compilation.

The purpose of this compilation is to permit us to survey the field and to
read. That was the intention of the research request and one assumption that
is fair is that the contributors intended to contribute to that process.

The best way to advance our understanding of design and designing is by
using this list to read.

It's not a fetish object and I can't imagine that any of the contributors
intended their contribution as canonical.

>i am saying this because i wish someone had said it to me at the beginning
>of my
>phd studies.

Look, Rosan. I have the feeling from some of your posts that you have had a
rough time in the university world. Now I may be assuming too much here, but
I have the feeling that you've had some bad advisers and I feel that you are
uncomfortable with people you consider to be authorities unless you feel
that they are using their authority to support your position from a position
you consider sympathetic. I feel -- perhaps wrongly -- that you read traces
of power relations and oppression into nearly any document that seems to
address scholarly issues from what you consider a mainstream view. I may be
mistaken in that assumption, but I don't feel mistaken in saying there just
isn't enough here to warrant your response.

While I appreciate your position on what you wish someone had told you at
the beginning of your PhD studies, this says as much about the schools you
attended as it does about graduate work.

My teachers encouraged us to read critically, to unpack assumptions, and to
think for ourselves from the first class I attended as an undergraduate.
They assumed that we would develop habits that would follow us into graduate
school. As you do, they encouraged us to challenge assumptions. There is a
difference, though. They also asked us to make sure that the assumptions we
challenged involved more than our own views of what others might be saying.

I cannot see that these lists entail assumptions other than assumptions
explicitly predicated in the documents from which they are drawn. For
example, Prof. Poldma's reference list entails specific assumptions stated
in the contextual documentation he provides. If there are more assumptions
visible in the compilation, you are certainly welcome to unpack them -- I'd
be curious to know if any of the contributors thought they were sending
enough material to suggest a canon or even enough to infer a position.

Sincerely,

Cindy Jackson

_________________________________________________________________
Watch LIVE baseball games on your computer with MLB.TV, included with MSN
Premium!
http://join.msn.com/?page=features/mlb&pgmarket=en-us/go/onm00200439ave/direct/01/