The distinction between discovering what is, versus creating what yet isn’t covers over a region of action that is far more important and common than either — a region Bruno Latour (after Étienne Souriau) called instauration, the act of discovering-creating in collaboration with the thing being brought into existence. Anyone who actually crafts real things, … Continue reading Instaurationalism
Once we finally recognize the degree to which truth is instaurated through our own participation in our own local and contingent patch of reality, we are faced with a decision, which is an ultimate matter of faith: We can take this recognition of truth’s being as somehow absolute, or We can take this recognition of … Continue reading Instaurationalism’s fork
Most “truth is a construct” type constructivists appear to have retained a vestigial correspondence theory of truth; that is, they take truth to be a little mental duplicate of, or model of or, in extreme cases, a substitute for, reality. Truth is true to the degree that it corresponds to reality. According to a correspondence-constructivist … Continue reading Instrumental-instaurationism?
From Latour’s Inquiry into Modes of Existence, a discussion on the concept of instauration (underlines added by me): To say that something — a scientific fact, a house, a play, an idol, a group — is “constructed,” is to say at least three different things that we must manage to get across simultaneously — and … Continue reading Instauration
For the last 25 years I have been iteratively refining a set of technical distinctions. These are the heart of my philosophy and design practice. Kabbalah accommodate these distinctions and gives them language. Are these understandings already there in Kabbalah, waiting to be recognized? Or are the latent possibilities, realized by configuative instauration? I am … Continue reading Philosophical-Kabbalistic mapping
Apparently the word “craft” is trending in the design world right now. I’ve been hearing it said around my own organization with suspicious frequency, always connected with building things that are well-built. But when I hear how most designers — or at design consultants — talk about craft, what I hear is craftsmanship, which has … Continue reading Craft vs craftmanship
Within the actual world are myriad objects of myriad materials which can be combined or taken apart, in myriad ways. Within the formational world are myriad subjects to whom reality is given and withheld, each in its own way, according to receptive capacities and responsive capabilities. Within the revelatory world is being beyond subjectivity and … Continue reading Quadrephania
I’ve had many names for this book brewing in my head, each with its own thematic emphasis. The book always concerns the relationship between design practice, our own personal and collective psychic-orders (faith) and our experience of the world. The core claim is always the same: our conceptions of design, of philosophy and of religion … Continue reading Volume titles
For the last several years, Susan and I have been collaborating on a philosophy of parenting. It is an application of a more general philosophy, and that philosophy is the instauration of an intuitive faith which is the substance of our marriage — the heart of our shared enworldment. (For background see the autobiographical endnote.) … Continue reading The uncanny craft of parenting
As a designer I care about three things. I care about making things people care about for many different but interconnected reason. An example, might be a pen with an appearance and tactility that resonates with the role of writing in their life. Or a bicycle that rides beautifully, but also reinforces the rider’s sense … Continue reading Recovering design
When explorers discovered the New World and began mapping it and sending back to Europe sketches of the people, animals, plants and landscapes they saw there, the images were strange and divergent. If one had never seen in-person the realities depicted in these images it would take significant imagination to constitute a common source. Imagine … Continue reading Maps and travelogues
An appendix Thomas Kuhn added to later editions The Structure of Scientific Revolutions has had a continuing influence on my understanding of design. In this appendix Kuhn explained that scientific paradigms should not be viewed exclusively in terms of thought. A paradigm is not just theoretical, or theoretically guided practice or practice informed theory (praxis … Continue reading The most interesting, important thing in the entire universe
An enception is a conceptual capacity, the ability to “get” a concept. Once an enception is established (by our enworlding neshamah to our conceiving ruach), its conceptual form can be received (whether intuitively perceived or intellectually conceived) as given wherever its corresponding form occurs in reality, both by our conceiving ruach in Yetzirah, and our … Continue reading Mapping olamot
Willfred Sellars said: The aim of philosophy, abstractly formulated, is to understand how things in the broadest possible sense of the term hang together in the broadest possible sense of the term. Under ‘things in the broadest possible sense’ I include such radically different items as not only ‘cabbages and kings’, but numbers and duties, … Continue reading Hanging with Sellars
A somewhat lengthy passage from Scholem’s Major Trends, interspersed with comments of my own: “The Mystic,” says Charles Bennett in a penetrating essay, “as it were forestalls the processes of history by anticipating in his own life the enjoyment of the last age.” This eschatological nature of mystical knowledge becomes of paramount importance in the … Continue reading Scholem on originality and tradition
If we imagine being as a ladder, we might situate ourselves at the base. But what if we imagine ourselves elsewhere, neither at the base, nor at the top of the ladder. Something is gained if we situate ourself at a permanent middle — metaxy, media res, thrown — with superscendent rungs always beyond the … Continue reading From mid-ladder
Before any beginning is infinitude. Pure infinitude. Ein sof. Before the beginning, the infinite articulates itself. Finitude is articulated within infinite ground, inseparable from it, like a ripple in water. Articulate finitude in infinite luminous ground. Atzilut. At the beginning, inside the threshold of finitude, articulate infinitude defines finitude within itself, enclosing it as being, … Continue reading Designerly metaphysics
I’m meditating on design-related expressions I have coined. These ideas orbit a central concern, which makes the difference between a project that is for me and one that is not. Practical fantasy — The idea that our favorite tools project a world around us — a potential story-field — and within it, ourselves as protagonist. … Continue reading Crossing design with Kabbalah
One face of all is material. This material is not a materialistic material of science, politics or society. This material is the stubborn resistance and graceful pliability of the world around us. It is the world we inhabit, in and among whom we live, in and with whom we participate as part, and to whom … Continue reading Instauratio
When I first learned the word “instauration” from Latour’s magnum opus, An Inquiry Into Modes of Existence, I was thunderstruck. Latour described precisely how it is to find the kinds of truth we discover-create in design research. But now, I am thunderstruck all over again, recognizing that the creation and revelation essential to Beriah is … Continue reading Instauratio ex nihilo