Jeff,
Thank you very much for this thoughtful response to my paper. The paper is an extension of my Theory of Design Thinking and a search for broader, deeper, and better understanding of design thinking and its potentials. Everything I write now is an exploration of the theory. I really appreciate your response to Ken who seems caught in a "Referential" mode of thought and unable to switch to a "Formative" one. I write with a focus on new expression not academic rigor, from the design stance, not the Empirical stance. I want people to critique my proposal based on what it is, not what it isn't yet trying to be.

Thanks  again,
Chuck

On Nov 13, 2011, at 1:12 AM, jeffrey chan wrote:

> Dear Chuck,
> Thank you for sharing your paper on this forum. I enjoyed your content direction as well as the scope of this paper. It is an ambitious paper which I will have to re-read a few more times to understand better. 
> I think insofar as there is nothing similar in nature out there, I concur based on the little that I know as far as the ambition and intentions of this paper are concerned. You are trying to build a philosophy of design thinking by interrogating the different fundamental categories that relate to design thinking. This paper finds some resonance in Simon's seminal work; however, Simon was less interested in philosophy than in design cognition and also by extent, design epistemology. Recently a book titled, Philosophy for Architects was published. I read it and instead of relating to these fundamental categories, the author elected to explicate the relationship of philosophy to architecture through the general (and constructed) history of philosophy and ideas instead. I think both approaches (i.e., explicative methods) are useful but each is useful in different ways. While Mitrovic's (the author) attempt aims for a comprehensive coverage, your attempt may be more appropriate for building a systemic body of categories in design thinking. As a final note on literature for now, Rittel's work has been immensely influential, though underdeveloped from a cognitive and principal-agent relationship, on the intentionality of agents participating within a complex design project.  
> But philosophy in my own weighted opinion has to do with the questioning of fundamental categories, and this is something which neither your attempt nor Mitrovic's work sees as the paramount goal. In this way, while both work are capable of describing design (thinking), they cannot yet transform (design) thinking, which is always the task of philosophy. 
> I have always wondered why not many more philosophers are interested in the problems of design, which pose a peculiar allure and challenge for philosophy. This may be because design does not fall into any of the three traditional branches of philosophy (metaphysics, ethics and epistemology) but however, design has to concede to all three at once in any reasonable manifestation. Furthermore, design goes beyond thinking into doing; and the kind of thinking that philosophers admit to is really a form of metacognition but the kind of thinking designers are engaged in is communal, distributed and practical. In other words, if philosophical thinking is generally an inward form of thinking, design thinking is directed outwards. That said, professional philosopher such as Ian Thompson in environmental ethics is doing some interesting work to bridge applied ethics with landscape architecture. But it remains to be seen how this form of work can instruct design thinking and doing. In the history of philosophy, I cannot think of anyone except for Kant who has tried to surmount the ambitions of design thinking in his systemic lifework in philosophy (i.e., what ought I do?). 
> If I may add by way of suggestions for this paper, I think designers are not only concerned with rules, but also with maxims and imperatives as well. "Less is a bore" and such statements are in fact maxims, and "do not harm the public interest" is a form of imperatives. There are however very few instances of 'rules'--which analytic philosophers tend to focus on--in design. After all, even though design maintains a form of language it does not obey the syntax of language--an error the postmodernists committed. We will have to wait for your next paper on ethics in design on this! In my own experience as a designer, it is the tension between imperatives and maxims (in whatever form) that elicited the philosophical issues in design--where both are 'right' or appropriate to some degree. Thus insofar as describing a general system is vital and important, its pragmatic contributions must however reside in supporting the practical, and incidentally, the philosophical task of a designer.  
> As a last note, I think including more (concrete) examples in design would help to explicate many of these abstract issues in design. 
> Again, many thanks for this instructive paper that stimulated my own design thinking on a Sunday morning! 
> Best,
> Jeff
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>> Date: Fri, 11 Nov 2011 11:07:44 -0500
>> From: [log in to unmask]
>> Subject: Philosophy and Design Thinking
>> To: [log in to unmask]
>> 
>> Those of you  interested in how philosophy might inform design thinking may find the paper "Philosophical Modes in Design Thinking" now available at www.independent.academia.edu/CharlesBurnette/papers worthwhile - there isn't much of a similar nature out there that I know of. I'd appreciate your comments and references.
>> 
>> Chuck Burnette
>