terry,

your long post repeats many assertions.  

since you dismissed design discourse in favor of design theory, all i wanted
is to understand where this comes from, what you mean by design theory that
is not part of a design discourse and i asked you to give us a few valid or
empirically testable propositions of your notion of design theory.  if i
would ask a physicist that question he or she would have no problems giving
me examples.

instead, you are asking me to identify design theories which you can analyze
in terms of their truth value.  since i am not talking about design theory
(other than asking you what you mean by that), i would not be able to
understand you by answering the question that i posed to you. -- a basic
principle of communication as listening

klaus 

-----Original Message-----
From: Terence Love [mailto:[log in to unmask]] 
Sent: Tuesday, July 08, 2008 4:52 PM
To: 'Klaus Krippendorff'; [log in to unmask]
Subject: RE: design as discourse

Hi Klaus,

Thanks for your message. 

I feel I'm aware of the implications of the use of language and how that
shapes how we create things. A difference between us might be that I'd
prefer to understand that process in terms of what we know in depth about
the physicality how humans function rather than (say) social constructivism.

As I suggested in my previous post, I feel you are shifting the discussion
in ways that differ from the history of discourse in the posts.

My first post was in response to Jurgen who claimed that 'design IS
discourse' and appeared to be claiming that  this definition uniquely and
totally represented design (implied by asking if anyone could suggest
situations in which the idea that design is discourse isn't defendable).

In line with ideas you have presented on this list many times, I suggested
that there are many constituencies for which the idea that 'design is
discourse' is irrelevant, unhelpful or misleading. Implicit in this
obviously is  the assumption of course anything has aspects of discourse if
we talk about it. Explicitly, however, I was pointing to the content aspects
that are talked about, rather than focusing on the process of discourse. For
designing a pressure vessel or the spring on a cam follower, their sucessful
design depends primarily on other issues than discourse.

My second post was in response to Alan Young whose post echoed in style that
of Jurgen in that it appeared to regard design wholly in terms of discourse.
I drew attention to the relative uselessness of describing an entity that
has multiple characteristics in terms of only one of them and to then try to
apply identity and predictive logic to all aspects of that entity using that
perspective. My post was simply drawing attention to axioms of discourse
analysis from the Greeks.

In my response to your post, you had claimed that theory is a special form
of discourse. I saw this as a similar example of attempting to use discourse
to give the illusion that all the behavior of an entity (in this case
theory) that has many characteristics  can be described by viewing the
entity in terms of only one of them. I agree communication of theory is
discourse and that theories can emerge as a result of discussions. My post
drew attention, however, to other characteristics of  theory that exist
alongside those of those seen through the lens of discourse and suggested
that for many of these, viewing theory primarily in terms of discourse was
irrelevant and said more about a type of habituation of mind that attempts
to force something complex into a single viewpoint by stripping off or
ignoring all other aspects of it.

My response focused on the richness of characteristics of ontology and
content of the different ideas of theory. This is along the lines of the old
aphorism that 'for false coin to exist, there must be real coin', i.e for
discourse to  happen there must be something ( real coin and false coin) to
discuss.   Your following response appeared to reinterpret the rich
ontologically different types  of theory and force onto them discursive
characteristics via an  elision using  'meaning'. As I indicated above,
implicit in what I wrote is the understanding that meanings differ among
constituencies and that meanings can be shaped by discourse and power in and
between constituencies. The focus of my post however was on types rather
than how people inferred meaning that is primarily an artifact of viewing
via the lens of discourse

Implicit in my posting, however, is that although the role of meaning is
useful to know, by itself it doesn't give understanding of all other aspects
of the different types of entity. In this I'm reminded of Newell's seven
layers and its echo in the layers of network theory

Design theories are no different from any other theories. The ontologically
different types of theory I listed also apply as characteristics of  design
theories.  Certainly, you can analyse any design theories in terms of
discourse and power, certainly that is useful under some circumstances. I'm
suggesting that it does not however provide a complete analysis and that it
is fallacious to imply that it does.

You asked me to provide examples of design theories. Can I suggest, instead,
that you identify design theories from the realm of design as discourse and
I will analyse them in terms of their truth value without using discourse
analysis in ways that test their truth against suitable evidence and result
in useful research outcomes?

Best wishes,

Terry



-----Original Message-----
From: Klaus Krippendorff [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Tuesday, 8 July 2008 8:06 PM
To: [log in to unmask]; [log in to unmask]
Subject: RE: design as discourse

no,
terry,

i am not asking you to "transform everything into the perspective that 'all
is discourse'."  i was trying to make you aware of the use of language in
the medium in which we are exchanging views, comments, proposals foe
language use and that in doing so something maybe accomplished (or not).  

this was in response to your proposing that design theory is what we should
be focusing on while design discourse is not helpful if not misleading.  it
seemed to me that this suggestion excludes a reflection on what we are doing
here.

i was asking you to provide some examples of propositions (similar to the
one's you were discussing as theory) that design theory, the way you
conceptualize it, holds true and can be applied to acts of designing. 

klaus