在这里转载一个关于由方法论困境而引申的对设计及社会科学认识认的反思的对话。主要是本人跟导师Stuart Walker 教授的email 和 meeting 的谈话中。缘起是本人对研究方法的困惑，和John Law （一位社会学家 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Law_(sociologist) 以前在兰卡斯特） 的一篇文章“Making a Mess with Methods”的启发。这篇文章是个draft，但是是他的2004年的书 After method 的浓缩。因为时间关系，暂时没有翻译和记录, 将仅有邮件贴与此共享，希望感兴趣的朋友批评交流.

里面涉及的主要作者和书籍：

Law, John (2004). After Method: mess in social science research. London New York: Routledge.

Walker, Stuart (2017). Design for Life: Creating Meaning in a Distracted World, London: Routledge.

Walker, Stuart (2018).Design Realities: Creativity, Nature and The Human Spirit, London: Routledge.

Suchman, Lucy (2011). Anthropological Relocation and the Limits of Design, Annual Review of Anthropology, 40: 1-18.

Lave, Jean. (2011). Apprenticeship in Critical Ethnographic Practice, The University of Chicago Press.

Margolin, Victor (2002).The Politics of the Artificial: Essays on Design and Design Studies,University of Chicago Press.

(Lofiazhan 写给 Stuart Walker 的 email, 15 May 2018)

Dear Stuart,

I hope these words find you well. Recently I've read something and had some thoughts (thoughmaybe naive), and when I revisited your chapter of ProgressiveDesign Praxis, I think I have a deeper and stronger empathetic feeling than before regarding why you always emphasize traditions, old philosophical teachings, and subscribe to them (somethimes it is a bit of common sense); and why the definite, singular, independent and structuralist thinking and knowing (though mybe few of us addmit we are in this way of producing definitive and close-ended outcomes of research) are something that is always incompetent and lacking; and why any understanding and making should be always in the circle of hermeneutic.

I read a paper about methods ofdoing research today which is also written by a professor who was in Lancaster.I attached here in case you are interested, but maybe you've read it early before, or maybe you don't think it's relevant.I found these quotes from the paper perhaps pertinent: 

• "So what is allegory? Here’sa quick and dirty set of suggestions. Allegory is the art of meaning somethingother than, or in addition to, what is being said. It is the art of decodingmeaning, of reading between the literal lines, to understand something else ormore. It is the craft of making several not necessarily very consistent thingsat once. It is the art of crafting multiplicities, indefinitenesses,undecidabilities. Of holding them together. Of relaxing the border controlsthat secure singularity." (p.12)

• "It [his messy experiencedescripted in the paper] is real, but it doesn’t fit the package deal ofcommon-sense realism. We could try to pretend that it does. But my conclusion,our conclusion, is that if we do so we are missing out [this reality is not common-sense one]" (p.13).

• "So it is, for me, a pointthat is simultaneously a matter to do with method, politics, ethics, andinspiration. Realities are not flat. They are not consistent, coherent anddefinite. Our research methods necessarily fail." (p.14). 

When approaching the end of his argument, John Law gave an enlightening suggestion by giving an example of allegorical prose to describe his research experience in the field, by which he was telling that the long-standing methods of social science, to some extent, are failed. These are also resonant with this:

• "Thinking about design asmethod directs our attention to what Law (2004) has named design’s 'hinterlands'; that is, that on which method relies, but which necessarily overflows its frame (see also Callon 1998)". [from Suchman’s paper 2011“Anthropological Relocation and the Limits of Design” p.3]

Also I find this description of the two reality below is commonly representative though it's quite old:

Bureaucratic and Pragmatic Relations of Theory and Practice (Kvale, 1997, cited in Lave, 2011)

I just find these are soresonant with what you claim that, in short, that the framework, toolkit, instrumentalist ways of doing research are not necessarily competent, andthey are not just the only legitimate ways of treating the world. There are also arts, literature and poetry which could inform us and offer the other ways of making the reality though these ways are not scientific and systematic. And this is reason why they are existing meaningfully and charmingly. There is a Chinese Zen Buddhist text going: "before you practiceZen, while you see a hill, it is a hill, and when you see a creek, it is acreek; when you start to practice Zen and after a certain time, while yousee the hill, it is not that hill, and when you see the creek, it is not thatcreek; but as you practice continues one day you have a rest, while you see the hill, it is still the hill, and when you see the creek, it is still thecreek." I don't know if these three stages of knowing and enlightenment which are in a returning circle which represents a return to "home" (borrow a metaphor from Lucy Suchman), have any relationship or similarity to your four levels of design interpretation?

This is just some thoughts I had. I don't know if I understand you and others correctly, if not, please just ignore it.

Best wishes,

Xiaofang

(Stuart Walker 回复 Lofiazhan 的 email, 15, May, 2018)

Hi Xiaofang,

Many thanks for your email. I am not familiar with this paper but the extracts you put in your email look excellent and, I think, resonate very much with the ideas I’ve been exploring.

In my work I have spoken not just of allegorical meanings. Traditional biblical interpretation recognises 4 layers of interpretation: Literal, Allegorical, Moral and Anagogical meanings.

Modernity tends to be less layered, less nuanced, flatter – what you see is what you get – there is no more. The modern world is about novelty, innovation and ‘always new’ – but when things are always new they have no opportunity acquire additional meanings and develop depth of meaning.

On the other hand, traditional writings and other creative works – perhaps because they often emerged over many generations – tended to accrete layers of meanings – their development was cumulative and in the process they accumulated depth. Also, they weren’t ‘static’ and therefore disposable – they were constantly evolving. They were in a continual stage of becoming because tradition is not static – it is always changing and adapting to serve the needs of changing circumstances and times.

Do you have the reference or the paper for the table you included in your email – this is very good too:

Bureaucratic or Pragmatic Relations of Theory and Practice (Kavale, 1997)

I look forward to talking to you further about these ideas on Monday at 11am
when we next meet.

With thanks and best regards,

Stuart

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Dear Stuart,

Thank you very much for your reply and explaination of it which makes your thoughts clearer to me.

Regarding the Bureaucratic and Pragmatic Relations of Theory and Practice (Kavale, 1997), I got it from a vedio given by Jean Lave, the link is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FAYs46icCFs (around 15-16', you can see a table, and she said was her later collegue Steinar Kavale). But I couldn't find the original paper which perhaps is, as many peope cited in their research, Kvale, Steinar. (1997). Research apprenticeship. Nordisk Pedagogik, Nordic Journal of Educational Research, 17, 186-194. But I still couldn't find the text though the author's other papers are available; and the Kvale and Kavale are not the same (I think she meant Kvale, because it is evident they are colleagues and once collaborated according to search). 

Hello Xiaofang

Here is the table and the reference – see attached. Also see reply from the library below.

Lave, J. (2011) Introduction: Apprenticeship and Critical Practice, Apprenticeship in Critical Ethnographic Practice, The University of Chicago Press, Chicago, IL, Ch. 1, pps.1-36

They are very good at tracking stuff down, I use the library a lot for this kind of thing.

Best

Stuart