Hi Terry,
I have to say, I always read your posts and benefit from your  
thoughts. I hope you will be at DRS in July.

Are we defining a word, or a field of enquiry? Were we to take the  
challenge of defining 'black' or for that matter 'green', we would  
quickly realise that a single definition can not be context  
exclusive. I can not imagine the field of medicine or law, stressing  
over a single, encompassing definition. Perhaps we are too eager to  
be taken seriously in academia. That we ask  such questions as to  
what pertains to a single definition of design suggests we want to be  
taken seriously but are not sure what we are. We are still what  
Buchanan in 1998 called a 'neoteric' discipline. I am tempted to ask  
my colleagues, can you define neoteric?

Mike
McAuley

On Jun 14, 2008, at 4:59 PM, Terence Love wrote:

> Hi Mike,
>
> Thanks for your post. I wonder? I feel context is more or less  
> relevant
> depending on context.
>
> When chatting  in a kind of loose social way then for me words are  
> just
> whatever is useful to get some sort of idea across and for this I  
> agree,
> context can be crucial. In fact you can use almost any words that are
> totally off meaning and still communicate an idea sort of (Ronnie  
> Barker was
> a master at it).  Its also common when people are not so skilled in  
> using a
> second language. For this kind of converstation, dictionaries are  
> useful
> because they provide all the range of meanings of a word that  
> people use and
> have used.
>
> For me it seems the practices associated with research and the  
> creation of
> useful predictive theory usually requires some fairly close  
> agreement on
> definitions of key words. This is usually the role of a glossary  
> rather than
> a dictionary.
>
> The confusion between these two types of talking can be important.  
> I've just
> been delighted to review a fantastic critical design paper on the  
> cultural
> and historical use of the words 'analysis' and 'synthesis'  in  
> design. The
> authors argue that we 'lost' the earlier, more useful, meanings and  
> then
> went and 'made up' some new lightweight meanings that are much less  
> useful -
> and these are in use today. The paper is signficantly relevant to  
> most of
> the Humanities besides Design. It  potentially turns upside down  
> much of
> design theory and creativity theory and study of activities in the  
> creative
> industries.
>
> Interestingly, if published, most of the Humanities and Design will  
> miss it.
> It's in a high status engineering design journal.
>
> Best,
> Terry
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: PhD-Design - This list is for discussion of PhD studies and  
> related
> research in Design [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of  
> Mike
> McAuley
> Sent: Saturday, 14 June 2008 12:26 PM
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: A simple definition of 'Design' ~ De-constructing the  
> Sign?
>
> If we could define anything by one single proposition, dictionaries  
> would
> shrink in content by about 80%. Okay, admittedly, I just made that
> percentage up for dramatic effect. I noticed 30 definitions for the  
> word
> black.  I think it is fair to say that single definitions are  
> pointless. We
> have such cumbersome rules in language. We call them verbs, nouns and
> adjectives.  I don't know who said it, but 'context is everything'.
>
> Mike
> McAuley