Category Archives: Philosophy
Lek and “the social”
Yesterday, talking with a friend about the current generation of youth’s terror of being awkward or inappropriate, I realized I’ve somehow managed to never write about the concept of lek on this blog, much less in connection with Buber’s social … Continue reading
Perspectives on hybrid systems
Approaches to the composition of hybrid systems (systems made up of both objective and subjective elements) can be classified according to perspective. Actor-Network Theory views hybrid systems from a 3rd-person perspective, in objective terms, without emphasis on either the human … Continue reading
One way to see design
Design is materialized philosophy. When designing something — which always and necessarily means designing something for someone — the central question is always: what is the right philosophy for this context? The purpose of design research is to get to … Continue reading
Popper: “We all have our philosophies…”
“We all have our philosophies, whether or not we are aware of this fact, and our philosophies are not worth very much. But the impact of our philosophies upon our actions and our lives is often devastating. This makes it … Continue reading
Reject the conflict
This passage from Bruno Latour expresses a humility that I feel is disappearing from the world: “It is us, the social scientists, who lack knowledge of what they do, and not they who are missing the explanation of why they … Continue reading
Epiphany-effects
I had insomnia again last night and put on the audiobook of Benedict Anderson’s Imagined Communities. The best history is always disorienting, and this is premium disorientation, on the order of Inventing the Individual. According to Anderson, nations and nationalism … Continue reading
Latour’s vocabulary
Bruno Latour changes his vocabulary and framework in every book. This is both irritating and valuable. It is irritating because there is too little continuity and much conceptual sprawl. Each book feels slightly out of control, and his corpus feels … Continue reading
Designers develop hybrid systems
Reading Verbeek’s What Things Do, I’m reminded of Latour’s handy term “hybrid”, an entity that is neither purely subjective nor purely objective, but a fusion of both. In Latour’s eye, the distinction between nature and society, or subject and object, … Continue reading
Let’s stop engineering philosophies
My pet theory is that philosophies have been developed in an engineerly mode of making, with emphasis on the thought system, and to be evaluated primarily epistemically: “is it true?” The Pragmatists improved on this by asking, “does it work”? … Continue reading
10,000 foot view
The spew below might be a plan for a talk. Lately I’ve been reflecting on what strikes me as the most difficult and interesting challenge I’ve faced adjusting to service design after decades of practicing other flavors of human-centered design … Continue reading
Design vs marketing mindset
What is it about the marketing mindset that makes it feel so familiar and so unfamiliar at the same time to my designer’s view of the world? Why do designers and marketers talk past one another if they aren’t very … Continue reading
For the sake of one
Rabbi Rachel Sabath Beit-Halachmi led Torah study yesterday. She focused on “the first thing Abraham did after becoming a Jew”: argue — and with God, no less, which she characterized as an essentially Jewish act. Then Adonai said, “The outrage … Continue reading
Ink
At the boundary between physicality and symbol stands an object marking the line between the two: the pen. A pen can be seen as a herm, a Janus at the gate, a hand-mezuzah, by which thoughts become physical, and physical … Continue reading
Personality and civility
I haven’t tracked this alleged Hannah Arendt quote, so it probably isn’t her: “Every generation, civilization is invaded by barbarians — we call them ‘children’.” Barbarians, how? I would say half of the children enter the world as me-less I’s, … Continue reading
First, second, third people
First-person thought is perspectival, understood when it is inhabited, seen-from, felt-from, known-from, experienced from. Understanding first-person thought is about finding the from, from which the thought understands whatever is presented. It is “where you’re coming from” as hippies say. First-person … Continue reading
Drops away into blindness
This passage from Voegelin’s Anamnesis sparked the insight I diagram as an asterisk. In the illuminatory dimensions of past and future, one becomes aware not of empty spaces but of the structures of a finite process between birth and death. … Continue reading
Public shaming as cruel and unusual punishment
Fron Jon Ronson’s So You’ve Been Publicly Shamed: The common assumption is that public punishments died out in the new great metropolises because they’d been judged useless. Everyone was too busy being industrious to bother to trail some transgressor through … Continue reading
From The Gay Science
From The Gay Science: What makes one heroic? — Going out to meet at the same time one’s highest suffering and one’s highest hope. In what do you believe? — In this: that the weights of all things must be … Continue reading