Dear Jeff,

There seem to be two or three threads bumping into each other here in
the wake of what seemed to be a research request. Chuck Burnette posted
the URL to the draft of an article. For my part, I responded off-list.
This was a research request, not a list thread. I think the article
raises interesting ideas, but in far too rough a form to be useful.
Given the nature of your response, I want to summarize the thread to
this point.

The thread did not begin with Chuck’s research request, but with your
comments on Chuck’s article. Once you posted that, I challenged
aspects of the article: unclear language, sweeping statements, basing
parts of a case on unstated arguments from outside the article, and
raising unsubstantiated empirical claims in psychology and neurobiology.
You did not refute my challenge, but rather argued against a claim I did
not make. Several other possible issues emerged in response to different
comments. (Per Galle drew attention to the CEPHAD bibliography, and I
responded to that note with a differentiating subject header.)

Jerry Diethelm raised a further – and slightly different – topic,
expanding the question of philosophy of design (or design thinking) to a
theory of design or – to quote Jerry’s post – a “design theory
that ‘is responsive to wants and needs, is goal oriented, and guided
by preferences and experiences’,” one that is “explicitly centered
in purposeful thinking and that helps explain the intentional wholeness
of {preferences and their embodied actions and expressions}.” I
responded to this by pointing to an even larger literature in this
precise area, theory of design.

The literature to which I drew your attention was on philosophy of
design and design theory. This is not “the broad domain of (concrete)
design analysis.” If I had been addressing concrete design analysis, I
would have pointed to such scholars as Nigel Cross, Norbert Roozenburg,
and Kees Dorst, or the design methods literature. 

Some aspects of the cited works cover different domains, so there is
some concrete design analysis in some of works. This is not the case for
all of them, no more than it is the case in Herbert Simon’s work. The
pieces I posted from my own work are not at all on concrete design
analysis but specifically on design theory, philosophy of design, and
design knowledge.

Grumpy as this may sound, I’m going to challenge you on your
assertions.

The concepts that Chuck developed are interesting, but I’d argue that
you’ve made more of the draft than it is. The language in this draft
is far too imprecise to be labeled “analytic philosophy for
design.”

This entire thread makes me a bit uncomfortable, given the fact that
Chuck didn’t ask for public commentary. At the same time, he made the
draft public and you’ve made strong claims about it. With respect to
the issues you’ve cited – and with respect to the very specific
topic of design theory in Jerry’s post – I’m going to argue that
there is a well developed and explicit literature. This is not concrete
design analysis, but philosophy of design and design theory. It’s not
that you are oblivious to this, but once these issues enter the picture,
I’ll argue you’ve neglected them.

If you can summarize what you see as a “a nascent but new
philosophical theory for design,” I’m happy to consider it. I
appreciate the earlier paper in which Chuck distinguishes different
modes of thought. The second paper goes too far in its claims, and this
is where it seems to me the literature may be useful – even if only to
distinguish what previous authors have addressed and what is new.

Yours,

Ken

Professor Ken Friedman, PhD, DSc (hc), FDRS | University Distinguished
Professor | Dean, Faculty of Design | Swinburne University of Technology
| Melbourne, Australia | [log in to unmask] | Ph: +61 3
9214 6078 | Faculty www.swinburne.edu.au/design

Jeffrey Chan wrote:

—snip—

I find it necessary to point out that neither myself, nor Jerry, nor
Chuck for that matter is oblivious to the massive number of literature
or amount of intellectual thinking that has gone into the area of design
philosophy, or design thinking. What is however unique, and productive
for me insofar as Chuck’s paper is concerned is first its ambition to
distill the fundamental categories of thought associated to design
thinking, and second, to somehow connect all this in what seems to be a
nascent but new philosophical theory for design. As I said before, his
scope reminded me of Simon’s work. Perhaps Peter Sloterdijk may come
as a close second in its content; but Sloterdijk’s major work is still
hot off the press at least in the english-speaking world. 

Like many other areas of theoretical thinking that is occurring among
learned individuals, I think it is genuinely hard to act as if one is
first on the scene, and for this reason, we should be given sufficient
credit here in this forum based on this understanding: I don’t think
anyone can get away pretending to be original in this way and I don’t
think anyone is guilty of that. I am sure all the literature that you
have cited are relevant to Chuck’s quest; but having gone through some
of these myself, I have reasons to believe that Chuck’s approach is
analytic philosophy for design, for which many of these written within
the broad domain of (concrete) design analysis while capable of
informing his work, cannot sufficiently be extrapolated to this form of
work.

—snip—