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PHD-DESIGN  August 2009

PHD-DESIGN August 2009

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Subject:

Re: Who Designs?

From:

Ken Friedman <[log in to unmask]>

Reply-To:

Ken Friedman <[log in to unmask]>

Date:

Mon, 17 Aug 2009 16:06:16 +1000

Content-Type:

text/plain

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Dear Jeremy,

Thanks for a thoughtful post. When I wrote, I stated that I didn't want
to argue the meaning of such words as “think,” “know,”
“intend” or “act.” I understand your argument about
intentions and ascribing intention -- this is one of those issues that
turns on definition, and in great part, it also has much to do with the
research communities in which we take part. So for the purpose of this
thread, I'm perfectly happy to use the word "desire." A human, a dog, or
an orangutan can desire. A machine cannot desire, and neither can
software.

Of course there is no faculty of intention. Whatever it is that
"intends" is the same entity that "desires." I wasn't referring to
specific faculties or organs, but rather to the sentient or knowing or
feeling creatures that desire and act. And I'd suggest further that one
cannot see or show the "desire" of a person or a dog any more than one
can see or show their "intention." Either way, we require some kind of
inference or listening to a report. 

But here we come to a problem. We can indeed say that a machine or a
software system is an actant. Interestingly enough, I've been re-reading
George Polti and Vladimir Propp, as well as Algirdis Greimas. This has
to do with some of Ditte's work on hermeneutics and the Western movie.
When we move over to Bruno Latour, actant takes a slightly different
shade -- but, in fact, the problem that I sometimes see in actor network
theory is similar to the problem I see in neo-formalism and some flavors
of structuralism. These sometimes seem to posit a world in systems and
artifacts are accorded the same ontological status and existential
privileges as living creatures.

The issue of "agency" has two senses. One sense involves those entities
that act in the world regardless of ontological status, whether
independent or dependent, whether acting on their own desires or serving
the desires of another actor. The other sense involves the agency of
those creatures that act as independent agents. The term "agent" can
take either meaning, and -- in fact -- the very word and concept have
that ambiguous nature. I possess agency as an independent decision
maker. I can also serve as the agent of another person who delegates
responsibility or authority to me as his or her agent.

What I have tried to say is that an existential being, a living and
knowing creature able to function as an acting person, can design. A
machine cannot. Because a machine cannot desire or know in any
responsible sense, it cannot select among preferred states and it cannot
therefore design. It may be programmed in some cases to enact design as
programmed by a designer.  

As noted in my earlier post, I understand the value of actor-network
theory as a thought experiment. Even so, I am not prepared to "start
treating things in the world symmetrically." Things in the world are not
beings, and the world goes seriously out of balance when we ascribe to
things the ontological status of beings. This is a world in which an
automobile is more to be valued than a person -- or perhaps it is a
world in which the automobiles of a class of wealthy people are more
greatly to be valued than the lives of another class of people. It is a
world in which we have designed cities for the flow of automotive
traffic regardless the cost to people, even though it became apparent
over forty years ago that this would soon make our cities unmanageable
and now unsustainable. When we treat all actants within a system as
ontologically and ethically symmetrical, we have a world that rapidly
becomes dysfunctional outside the kind of thought experiment that can
shed light on how things and people work together in socio-technical
systems.

If, to use Flichy's words, all technologies are social technologies,
this does not mean that all technical apparatus are social creatures.
They are not. A dog, an orangutan, a human being -- these are
existential beings that can design, and it is for these existential
beings that we have design responsibility. I may wish to design a better
car, I may desire a better designed car, but I do not design for my car.
In my case, of course, it goes further than that. I chose a place to
live that permits me to walk to work, so I no longer have a car. But if
I did, my car would be a tool and not a being. 

There are deep ethical problems involved in the epistemology of this
thread, and the ethical problems arise from the ontological status we
ascribe to beings and to things. A being is a "who." A thing is an "it."
When I ask, "who designs?" I speak of beings.  

Warm wishes,

Ken

Ken Friedman, PhD, DSc (hc), FDRS
Professor
Dean

Swinburne Design
Swinburne University of Technology
Melbourne, Australia

Jeremy Hunsinger wrote:

--snip--

I don't think it involves intentionality, I tend to think that  
intention and intentionality, which refer to some state of the brain/ 
mind/nous are much like 'will'... they are concepts that solve a  
particular theoretical problem of the middle ages or modernity, but  
alas don't exist.  What we mean when we say x intends, is merely to  
say that person will act or person will not act according to what he  
knows and desires, there is no special faculty of intention that  
separates persons from non-persons, etc.  In short, i don't think  
intention or intentionality exists as anything other than shorthand  
for knowing our own desires and realizing them in the world.  And  
really, that is all we need, we don't need 'intend' anymore than we  
need 'will', except as literary constructs.  To design then, does not 

require to intend, it merely requires knowledge/thought/desire+action 

which is equivalent to planning+action.

--snip--

So we can turn back to the dog examples and say... what really  
happened if we do not infer 'intention' because intention doesn't  
really exist... and at least i find, that the dog saw a plan, modeled 

a plan, and acted on a plan because it had a desire.  

--snip--

Which then brings us back to the question of agency... agency has  
nothing to do with intention, and agency is merely the ability to act 

in the world.  Most things have agency, likely more things than some  
people are comfortable with, for instance, the concept 'intent' has  
acted in the world through humans and other beings to perpetuate  
itself as an analytic tool in a system of tools, or technologies that 

we use in sensemaking activities.  Is it the best tool, perhaps not,  
is it real, sure it is real in the sense that it exists as a concept  
and can act, does it have any relationship to the state of the mind  
that it claims... perhaps metaphorically, but not in any real sense of 

saying that 'a person intends to do x, then does not do x'  which is  
merely saying, 'i have a set of accepted stories about people, and in 

that set of stories, i use the world intend to mean that a person  
knows he or she should perform some act and desires said act, yet may 

or may not do so'  however, you don't know the person knows, nor the  
person's desires beyond anything they say, and even then they may be  
misrepresenting their knowledge or desires for other purposes.  What  
you have in the end though... is merely the persons actions... which  
exist in/as a system of relations, which exist.  You can posit all  
kinds of other things in the world and tell stories about them though 

and perhaps they'll enter into the analysis or not.  So... while  
intention may play a part in a descriptive narrative, it is shorthand, 

but in agency all you can really see is what people do, what machines 

do, what animals do, what nature does, what ecologies do,  systems and 

relations do, what exists.

Not everything that exists has agency, granted, but it is surprising  
as to what does when you take a much stronger sense of skepticism  
toward traditional descriptions and start treating things in the world 

symmetrically.

--snip--

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