Ontological questions of a Structural Dialogical Design apprentice concerning SDD

Axioms from sociology of knowledge perspective

vera.veritas@gmail.com
http://www.futureworlds.eu/wiki/User:Vera_vratuša

This contribution to The 2015 International Conference on the Science of Dialogic

Design: Symposia for Scientists and Practitioners (SDD Symposia 2015 in further text) ,
focuses one of the design aims of the preliminary program of the Symposia (see
http://www.fu
tureworlds.eu/wiki/The_2015_International_Conference_on_the_Science_of_Dialogic_D
esign:_Symposia_for_Scientists_and_Practitioners ) to explore “what questions remain
unasked in framing the DDS initiative”, as it is formulated in the “Referential
Transparency for Dialogic Design Science” paper (in further text RTP, was
,,accessible at
http://dialogicdesignscience.wikispaces.com/file/view/DDSontoDOSM.pdf/200160536/D
DSontoDOSM.pdf , but on Jan.10.2024 when the author of this paper tried to retrieve it,
this document was not any more accessible).

RTP summarizes main findings of the employment of the Interpretive Structural

Modeling method to making more transparent the linkages and influence pattern among
thirteen out of fourteen principal components of DDS: 1. Axioms(6) and 2. Definitions
(7), within Foundation domain; 3. Laws (7), 4. Action Tree, 5. Erroneous Priorities
Effect, 6. Role Distinction (Context, Content, Process), and 7. Situational Complexity,
within Theory Domain; 8. Consensus Method (7), 9. Language patterns, 10. Phases
(Discovery, Design, Action), 11. Dialogue Stages (Definition/Anticipation, Designing,
Decision, Action Planning), and 12. Design Management Team roles, within
Methodology Domain, and 13. Co-laboratory of democracy harnessing collective
wisdom, within Applications Domain of science. The main finding of RTP identifies six
axioms within the foundational domain of science corpus as the most highly
influential component of SDD, which impacts the most highly influenced component of
the science arena application domain -face to face SDD type co-laboratory of
democracy.

The starting hypothesis of this contribution to SDD Symposia 2015 is that it is the
ontological questions concerning the structure and transformation of social systems
which remain unasked or are the least often explicitly addressed and reflected upon.
This hypothesis is derived from the critical analysis of the RTP content and its
comparison with the content elaborating 14 component elements of Dialogic Design
Science (DDS) on the pages of wiki (DDS wiki in further text, accessible at
http://dialogicdesignscience.wikispaces.com/ (N.B. V.V. not any more accessible) whose
primary purpose is to engage the DDS community of practitioners and theoreticians in an
on-going discussion focusing on the evolution of the science.
Comparison of relevant contents of RTP and SDD wiki revealed first of all the
conspicuous absence in RTP of any mention of the existance of seven, and not only
six foundational axioms, as well as lack of clarification of contradictory ontological
implications of each of them, impacting all domains and phases of SDD process.
Comparison of RTP and SDD wiki content reveals that seventh axiom concerning social
power relations within social systems is not mentioned at all and reflected upon within
RTP.

Space and time limits set for individual contributions to SDD Symposia 2015 do not
allow formulation of other unasked ontological questions discovered through comparison
of RTP and SDD wiki contents within remaining 13 components of SDD distributed in
all four domains of SDD (for instance contradictory ontological implications of theory of
change component within the theory domain of the SDD science corpus, is also
completely left out from RTP like power axiom).

Presentation of arguments corroborating the hypothesis that it is the ontological

questions concerning the power structure and transformation of social systems which
remain unasked and are therefore insufficiently reflected upon, most of all in the
axiomatic foundations domain of SDD, will be carried out in the form of a table.
Observing the law of requisite parsimony, in the attempt to avoid cognitive overload of
eventual readers of this contribution, the left column in Table 1. contains citations of
respective SDD axioms’ formulations from the RTP or sddp wiki, while the right column
contains corresponding formulations of this author ’s statements as to which relevant
ontological questions remain unasked and reflected upon as they should, if we keep in
mind main lessons of sociology of knowledge (Vratuša, V. 2006+, SOCIOLOGY OF
KNOWLEDGE: Comeback to the Faculty of Philosophy in Belgrade in electronically
supported form, http://moodle2.f.bg.ac.rs/course/view.php?id=11 or
https://www.academia.edu/40404415/%D0%A1%D0%BE%D1%86%D0%B8%D0%BE
%D0%BB%D0%BE%D0%B3%D0%B8%D1%98%D0%B0_%D1%81%D0%B0%D0%
B7%D0%BD%D0%B0%D1%9A%D0%B0_Sociology_of_Knowledge.

Table 1. Ontological questions of an SDDP apprentice concerning SDD Axioms

AXIOMS OF DIALOGIC DESIGN
SCIENCE : citations from RTP (1.-
6.) and SDD wiki (7.)
1. The Complexity Axiom:
Social systems designing is a multi-
dimensional challenge. It demands that
observational variety be respected
when engaging
observers/stakeholders in dialogue, …
Unasked corresponding ontological
questions
Is observational variety of observers/
stakeholders within multi-dimensional
social system coextensive with a
diverse conglomerate of
complementary value perspectives of
individual members of social systems,
or is observational variety socially
structured into three contradictory

…while making sure that their
cognitive limitations are not violated
in our effort to strive for
comprehensiveness (John Warfield).
2. The Engagement Axiom: Designing
social systems, such as health care,
education, cities, communities, without
the authentic engagement of the
stakeholders is unethical, …
…and results in inferior plans that are
not implementable (Hasan Ozbekhan).
social interests of groups of individual
members of social systems occupying
antagonistic places in class division
of labor (CDL in further text) on
managing and executing work tasks, to
conserve, reform or eliminate CDL
and derived social relations of power
inequality, exploitation and
domination?
Do the cognitive limitations of
observers/stakeholders present
primarily physiologically and
psychologically structured inability of
individual observers/stakeholders to
compare for relationships of influence
within an organized set of observations
more than limited number of
observations due to cognitive
overload,
or cognitive limitations are socially
structured by the contradictory places
which groups of observers/stakeholders
occupy within social systems having
CDL and ensuing exploitative and
oppressive social power relations,
which the exploited and oppressed
group of observers/stakeholders want to
“violate” or eliminate ?
Is the practice of social groups
monopolizing managing work functions
in CDL not to engage social groups
reduced to executing work functions in
CDL in designing of particular social
sub-systems just “unethical”,
or is this “unethical” practice socially
structured by historically specific
variant of “unethical” dominant
social relations of exploitation and
domination characteristic of the global
social system since protracted XVIth
century (accumulation of capital on the
world scale)?
Are we not witnessing throughout class
prehistory of human social systems,
especially in epochs of acute

3. The Investment Axiom:
Stakeholders engaged in designing their
own social systems must make
personal investments of trust,
committed faith, or sincere hope, in
order to be effective in discovering
shared understanding and collaborative
solutions (Thomas Flanagan).
4. The Logic Axiom:
Appreciation of distinctions and
complementarities among inductive,
deductive and retroductive logics is
essential for a futures-creative
understanding of the human being.
Retroductive logic makes provision for
leaps of imagination as part of value-
and emotion-laden inquiries by a
variety of stakeholders (Norma Romm).
manifestation of internal contradictions
of dominant social relations of
exploitation and oppression, more or
less violent implementation of social
systems’ organization plans of
managing minority which are
“inferior” only from the standpoint
of managed, exploited and oppressed
majority, as well as from the
standpoint of the wiser part of
exploiters and oppressors who realize
that provision of at the least passive
consent of exploited and oppressed
through some form participation in
decision making process, lowers the
costs of their rule?
Under what socially structured
conditions is it possible to co-create
authentic trust, committed faith, or
sincere hope in discovering shared
understanding and collaborative
solutions between exploiters and
oppressors monopolizing creative and
managing work functions in CDL, on
the one hand, and exploited and
oppressed, reduced to executing
unqualified manual or routine
intellectual work functions in CDL on
the other?
Is not retroductive logic a
pragmaticistic first step of choosing
the most probable causal explanation
of presently existing or desired future
reformed state of social system aiming
at economizing the research process
(Pierce), before deductive prediction
and inductive testing of hypothesis
within ontological axioms of dualistic
yes – no formal logic, corollary of
functionalist consensual or hermeneutic
constructivist answer to the question of
structure and quantitative evolutionist
reforms of social systems? Does not
dialectical logic of becoming of
qualitative transformations of social
systems through self-organized and

5. The Epistemological Axiom: A
comprehensive science of the human
being should inquire about human life
in its totality of thinking, wanting,
telling, and feeling, like the indigenous
people and the ancient Athenians were
capable of doing. It should not be
dominated by the traditional Western
epistemology that reduced science to
only intellectual dimensions (LaDonna
Harris).
6. The Boundary-Spanning Axiom: A
science of dialogue empowers
stakeholders to act beyond borders in
designing symbiotic social systems that
enable people from all walks of life to
bond across possible cultural,
religious, racialized, and disciplinary
barriers and boundaries, as part of an
enrichment of their repertoires for
seeing, feeling and acting (Ioanna
Tsivacou).
7. The Reconciliation of Power
Axiom: Social Systems designing aims
to reconcile individual and institutional
power relations that are persistent and
embedded in every group of
stakeholders and their concerns, by
honoring Requisite Variety of
distinctions and perspectives as
self-conscious overcoming of the
intrinsic contradiction of capitalist
mode of production between
potentially unlimited development of
productive forces of human labor and
limited private profit motive of societal
life reproduction within CDL, make
more adequate provision for leaps of
objectively possible utopian
imagination?
What is the socially structured source
of conspicuous absence of historical
material societal life reproduction
activity from the formulation of the
epistemological axiom’s conception of
both positively valued “comprehensive
science of the human being” and from
the criticized intellectualistic or
rationalistic “Western” conception of
science? Does not exist within history
of western a-historical and idealistic
ontological research of human
“nature” and human social systems,
very strong current giving priority to
irrational driving forces of individual
and social existence?
What is the socially structured source
of conspicuous absence of any
mention of CDL barriers and
boundaries from the formulation of the
boundary-spanning axiom?
What is the socially structured source
of absence of power axiom from RTP
and of not asking the ontological
question what is social power
(“varying sum” or “zero sum” socially
structured “game” rooted in socially
structured CDL)? Can unequal social
power relations and contradictory
manifested in the Arena (Peter Jones). social interests rooted in CDL among
stakeholders be at all reconciled ?

The main preliminary finding of this series of suggestively formulated ontological

questions stimulated by contradictory theoretical and practical implications of present
formulations of SDD axioms, is best summarized in the following concluding
hypothesis that needs further research: key socially structured source of unasked
ontological questions concerning structure and transformation of human social systems in
RTP and SDS wiki, stems from the fact that SDD scientists and practitioners do not
come from “all walks of life”, but from particular social group occupying concrete place
in CDL. Just a look at numerous personal pages of international and local SDD scientists
, practitioners and apprentices linked to the home page of SDD Symposium 2015, reveals
that we are practically all affiliated to the new small bourgeoisie of highly educated
specialists and students in process of becoming highly educated specialists. Do not
we affiliates of highly educated small bourgeoisie, occupy contradictory place in CDL
of hired direct producers of legitimizing ideologies of CDL, interested in
improvement of our own relatively privileged position within CDL through partial
reforms of existing dominant social relationships, and not for their qualitative
transformation, in fact elimination of CDL? (Elaboration of key concepts of new small
bourgeoisie, social interests, class division of labor , accumulation of capital crisis,
integral self-management, as well as their implementation in the research of the influence
of social scientists’ small bourgeois class affiliation on the choice of social inequality
research paradigm and policy proposals is available to those interested in Vratuša, V.
(2012, available at
https://www.academia.edu/7845869/Tranzicija_odakle_i_kuda_I_Tranzition_Where_Fro
m_and_Where_To_I_ ).

If there is some truth in the concluding hypothesis that main socially structured source of
unasked ontological questions within SDD science so far, presents privileged position of
SDD scientists in CDL and from this structural position derived social interest in partial
reforms within existing system of dominant social relations and not an interest in radical
transformation of dominant social relations, what should be the answer to another
question occupying prominent place within the formulated aims of the SDD Symposia
2015 preliminary program: “Can Dialogic Design Science contribute towards reaching a
global consensus?”

Due to the fact that the author of this contribution to SDD Symposium 2015 is not able
to use the unique opportunity to meet in person pioneers of SDD, participate in f2f co-
laboratories of harnessing collective wisdom and trainings in SDD Methodology, let me
implore organizers and participants to:

1) publish this author’s contribution to SDD Symposia 2015 on an interaction capable

internet page you consider most appropriate, to enable virtual asynchronous discussion
and critique of its main starting and concluding hypotheses before, during and after
synchronous SDD event;

2) publish your own contributions and communicate the respective internet addresses for
the same reason;

3) include the following statement among statements of personally present participants

of SDD Symposia 2015 concerning triggering question on challenging trends that present
stakeholders anticipate for a sustainable conscious (r)evolution of our planet during the
next 20 years: elimination of class division of labor and its legal expression: big
capitalist private ownership of conditions and means of sustainable societal life self-
managing reproduction, and report on the action tree and erroneous priorities effect
(Kevin Dye).