The Fog Island Argument: Conversations About the Assessment of Arguments in Design and a General Education Course of Studies in Design, Planning, and Policy-Making

By Thorbjoern Mann

The book explores two issues about design: The first, evaluation of arguments used in discussions about design, planning, policy proposals, a subject neglected by traditional logic presents proposals for their systematic assessment. The second is based on the insight that design arguments contain premises spanning the entire range of types of human knowledge, whose validation draws on all approaches to human inquiry (including but not limited to scientifi c method). A general education course using exposure to design tasks therefore would provide students with a better framework for exploring and understanding all these inquiry forms, and how they relate to one another.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Jun 25, 2007
• ISBN: 9781462824106

Thorbjoern Mann

Thorbjoern Mann, Ph.D. has been teaching and writing about architecture, architecture and design theory and methodology, building economics, time management for designers. Retired from teaching, he continues to write, draw, paint, and consult on design issues. He lives in Tallahassee, Florida but spends part of his time restoring an old farm house in Austria.

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Copyright © 2007 by Thorbjoern Mann.

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Contents

Preface

The Fog Island Argument

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Preface

This book pursues a dual purpose. One is the presentation and elaboration of ideas I first developed while studying at Berkeley, which resulted in my dissertation on argument assessment for design decisions. This was part of a larger effort of a team of people led by the late Professor Horst Rittel, (whose ideas permeate the book in many ways) developing and studying the ‘argumentative model of design’, motivated by the desire to find a workable model of the design process that would then become the basis for the development of more useful information systems for design and planning, for example, and better ways of teaching and doing design.

One key question arising in this connection was that of how design arguments—the ‘pros and cons’ about design and planning proposals—might be evaluated in a more systematic and transparent manner to provide a sound basis for decisions. Turning to logic and related disciplines for help, I found that the kinds of arguments I saw in design were not given much if any attention. The reasons, I suppose, were that their argument pattern or inference rule does not conform to the standards of validity of formal logic, and the resulting conclusions (approval respectively disapproval of the design proposal) cannot be evaluated in terms of the traditional ‘true / false’ criteria. Nor did the literature on informal reasoning offer any help. While emphasizing that everyday discourse indeed contains many forms of argumentation that are not sanctioned by logic but nevertheless afforded some credit by the normal reasonable person, the question of how a set of pro and con arguments might be evaluated so as to yield some overall measure of support for the design proposal was not addressed in any systematic fashion, as far as I could see. Under pressure to finish the dissertation, and blissfully ignorant of how this might be stepping on toes of venerable authority, I developed a method for evaluating design arguments. It focused on ‘plausibility’ rather than truth, and acknowledged the inconclusive nature of the design argument pattern.

My subsequent teaching career was preoccupied with more practical aspects of architecture—such as architectural programming, building economics, design studio, time management for designers,—which were not only sufficient to fill my days but in their own right very interesting areas of inquiry. Looking back at the dissertation after three decades, I was struck by two aspects. One was that I had stumbled upon a topic of broader significance than I realized at the time. I am now convinced that the bulk of human argumentation is more concerned with issues about ‘what we ought to do’ than with the traditional Aristotelian mantra of ‘seeking true knowledge’. The other aspect is that the study of the kinds of arguments dominating the design and planning discourse is still very much neglected. As far as I can see, the traditional disciplines one would expect to be concerned with arguments of all kinds, mainly formal logic and its newer derivatives, but also critical thinking and practical reasoning, still have not acknowledged much less subjected design arguments to any thorough analysis. Nor have I found more advanced answers to the question of design argument assessment. From this point of view, it seems that I had also stumbled upon a momentous blind spot of logic and related scholarship, a blind spot which seems close to scandalous. Of course, a dissertation in architecture was not even on the radar screen of disciplines one would assume to be ‘in charge’ of this issue, so it is not surprising that it did not spark much of a discussion in those fields, nor in the general public. The first aim of this book is therefore to try to present my tentative proposals for this problem for discussion in a more accessible format than a dissertation gathering dust in the Berkeley library.

The second purpose—which will actually serve as the ‘pretext’ and vehicle for the discussion of the first—is that of suggesting a general introductory course in design, as a key component of liberal arts education. (Design here is understood in a general sense, encompassing planning, decision-making and policy-making.) Such a course seems desirable for several reasons: As the analysis of the ‘Standard Design Argument’ demonstrates, design involves question types from a wide range of modes of human inquiry. Therefore design is in a unique position to help students understand how all these inquiry types relate to one another, serving the common purpose of supporting design decisions. From a design point of view, the gap between the ‘two cultures’ deplored by C.P. Snow seems less formidable; indeed, a design perspective would help overcome the presumed incompatibility of those cultures. The information feeding the design discourse integrates the contributions of scientific method and cultural, artistic, poetic creativity, the mutually suspicious factions of natural versus social sciences, the realms of theory as opposed to practical application. Thus, a course in this view of design could help provide students headed for very different disciplines with a common frame of reference and vocabulary, one that will prove desperately needed in their future discourse in a world where their respective contributions will have to be brought together in the work towards more acceptable design, planning, and policy solutions.

It turns out, in my admittedly prejudiced opinion, that this might also be a contribution toward a more meaningful realization of democracy: one moving beyond the (perhaps necessary but unsatisfactory) decision-making shortcuts of majority voting, for example, towards ensuring that all the insights, concerns, desires, and wisdom of all those affected by a proposed plan can be brought to bear on its development and on the decisions about its adoption and implementation. In this task, the insights drawn from the discussion of argumentation in design may prove helpful, completing the circle between the two purposes.

The material is presented as a series of conversations exploring these topics, resulting in a set of proposals for the argumentative model and its practical application, a new view of what may be called a ‘design-based’ set of principles for democratic decision-making, an outline of a course or even a curriculum for this general understanding of design, together with a tentative research agenda suggesting areas and issues in need of more thorough investigation and discussion.

The fictional participants in this discussion include the mysterious Abbé Boulah and his friend Bog-Hubert, two mischievous characters which have increasingly encroached upon my writing in recent years, and can no longer be exorcised. The setting is an equally mythical Fog Island Tavern, where the customers are waiting for the fog to lift so they can return to the mainland or go fishing. Whether the fogged-in tavern should be seen as a metaphor for the condition in which the venerable sciences of logic and rhetoric and their derivative modern daughters have left us, the expression of a nostalgic desire for a place where such conversations might occur, or just a desperate author’s literary device to prevent his characters from running off to escape from the esoteric boredom of the subject, (since there is no sex or murder or mayhem) must be left for the reader to decide.

My hope is that these ideas and suggestions will be accepted as invitations for discussion and discourse that can eventually lead to practical application, after the sketches presented here have been forged into more comprehensive ‘common plans’ drawing on others’ insights.

The Fog Island Argument

Conversations About A Scandalous Blind Spot of Logic,

The Assessment of Arguments in Design Discourse,

And A Design Based General Education Course of Studies

The Fog Island Tavern, a mythical pub on an equally mythical island, is a patchwork structure built on poles, from salvaged debris of hurricane-ravaged houses, shrouded in fog for an indeterminate period of time. Some characters marooned there with nothing better to do are engaged in conversation while waiting for more appropriate weather to return to the mainland after an extended holiday weekend, or continue it by going fishing.

The cast of characters includes one Abbé Boulah, an imaginary figure as shrouded in mystery as the island tavern in fog. There is also an architect, an artist, a professor of logic, a scientist and various others occasionally fading in and out of the fog.

—

A gaunt, sunburnt man of indeterminate age and equally indeterminate occupation (being involved in many strange endeavors that do not match standard categories in classified job advertisements) enters the Tavern. His name is—supposedly—Bogubert R. Pheefey, but some rumor has him running an illicit moonshine still in some hidden swamp (bog) in a nearby National Forest. This gave him his nickname Bog-Hubert. He discovers his friend Abbé Boulah, sitting at the bar just as he had left him some time ago. Sheets of yellow notepad paper are scattered around him, curling with wet rings of condensation run off ice-filled glasses, on the wooden counter.

Chapter 1

A missing link in general education?

Abbé Boulah, you’ve been sitting there for hours chewing on your pencil, scribbling notes—what in three twisters’ name are you working on?

Huh? Ah, Bog-Hubert. Sorry, I didn’t see you coming in. Well, you see, this grandnephew of mine, Jandui, he has written to me to ask for advice about what to study. He is starting college this fall. All excited; he wants to get a head start on it. So he got the outlines of all the courses he has to take, and bought all his books for his required courses.

That’s admirable! So what’s the problem?

Well, he also has to take some electives. And here is his question. He looked at the content of the required courses, and they are all so different, he can’t figure out what holds it all together.

So? That’s education for you. If you knew ahead of time what you’re going to learn, you wouldn’t need it, would you? And whether anything actually is holding things together, well . . . that’s another question entirely?

Big help you are. Of course, you may have half a point there. But he’s asking me to suggest some electives that could give him a better basis and tools for making sense of all of them. I wish I’d had that much sense when I started college. Me, I