Hi Victor,
I appreciate your sentiment. Yet things are not so straightforward as what
you imply.
There are deep epistemological differences between making justified theory
and writing opinion or speculation.
Much of the design literature is characterised by opinion and speculation
rather than epistemologically justified theory.
What makes writing a literature review in the design theory realm
incredibly difficult is this lack of justified theory; the prevalence of
opinion, speculation and pseudo theories; and the prevalence of weak and
faulty reasoning and analysis. For a literature review about the creation
of design theory to be useful, it is necessary for it to address the issues
in terms of theory, rather than discussion of opinion and speculation.
As part of some research into design theory making some years ago, I
reviewed around 1000 publications of prominent design theorists to map out
their design theories and found that over half had no theory foundation and
expressed no theories. For the remaining 400 or so documents , I found the
use and development and definition of concepts and the development of design
theory deeply flawed by faulty reasoning. In many cases, there appeared to
be an almost complete lack of awareness of this faulty reasoning to the
point that authors would define a concept and then almost immediately use it
in a sense different to how they had defined it. This applied even to the
most basic concepts of design theory. In other cases, authros would
confidently make assumptions that were selef evidently false when viewed
from a slightly different perspective.
These problems of deeply flawed theory making were so widespread in the
literature led me to develop a formal tool for meta-theoretical analysis of
design theories. The same tool can be also used for analysing theories
expressed by an author. Design Studies published the tool in 2000 (see
references). In 2000, I made an offer of a prize if anyone could provide me
with ANY publication in design theory that would stand up to serious
critical review of the reasoning underpinning its theory making. So far, I
have come across only one design research publication that would win that
prize (Houkes and Vermaas see below).
This presents a serious suite of problems for reviewing the literature in
terms of theory and requires a particularly focused effort on the
epistemological detail of design theory and the validity of reasoning that
underpins it.
You suggested there is a need for 'serious study of the long line of major
thinkers who have written extensively about design'. This seems to be going
in a completely different direction to the point it is hard to see how it
might contribute significantly to creating more valid design theories. I
suggest, the 'study of major thinkers' is a completely different task. To
me it seems more a task in the realm of History of Design Authors rather
than the epistemological needs of Design Theory analysis. To create better
design theories requires analysing the epistemological details of theories
and, for that , the authorship is irrelevant as is any details of the
authors lives or thoughts.. Thinking about what you propose seems to be more
a study of people rather than theories. The role of such a Design History
task would appear to be in building scholarly status in the realm of Design
History rather than contributing to the creation of a body of
empirically-justified predictive design theories based on sound reasoning
that enable designers to better understand the consequences of proposed
designs and to more easily develop design that result in intended real
world consequences.
I agree with you that we need to create a better body of design theory. To
do that however, I suggest the the focus o any such literature review needs
to be on epistemology and validity of design theory and the formal reasoning
and empirical evidence that underpins. I suggest this means setting aside
to a different task and purpose any discussion about the authors, their
lives, motivations and personal reasons for developing theories.
To address design theory focusing on the epistemology of theory, the
reasoning and empirical evidence and setting aside any discussion of
authors and their lives would align the field of Design with other more
established disciplines in terms of building theory.
Best wishes ,
Terry
---
Dr Terence Love
PhD(UWA), BA(Hons) Engin. PGCEd,
FDRS, AMIMechE
Director,
Love Services Pty Ltd
PO Box 226, Quinns Rocks
Western Australia 6030
Tel: +61 (0)4 3497 5848
Fax:+61 (0)8 9305 7629
[log in to unmask]
--
References
Houkes, W., and P.E. Vermaas (2010) Technical Functions: On the Use and
Design of Artefacts , vol. 1 of Philosophy of Engineering and Technology
(Dordrecht: Springer).
Love, T. (2000). Philosophy of Design: a Meta-theoretical Structure for
Design Theory. Design Studies, 21(3), 293-313. (preprint available
http://www.love.com.au/PublicationsTLminisite/2000/2000%20DesStud%20Philosop
hy%20of%20Design.htm )
-----Original Message-----
From: PhD-Design - This list is for discussion of PhD studies and related
research in Design [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Victor
Margolin
Sent: Sunday, 11 August 2013 1:40 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: design thinkers
I have wanted to post some thoughts for quite a while about how design is
theorized. What is missing from the tendencies to create design theory is a
body of work that studies in depth the work of past theorists. What often
occurs is that there is a quest for new universal theories that have no
relation to the work that others have done before to consider the same
subject. In fields like sociology or anthropology or psychology, the
extended writings of the grand theorists have been studied and researchers
in the field have come to some understanding of how those theorists
approached the challenge of theorizing their field. Thus, new theorists have
contended with those who came before them as part of the process of moving
their own ideas forward.
We lack such a tradition in design research, in large part because there
have been hardly studies of the extended work of the best thinkers in the
field. While E.P. Thompson wrote an impressive book about William Morris’
political beliefs, we have barely any literature about anyone else’s
thinking. I could cite, for example, among British scholars Bruce Archer,
John Chris Jones, Stanley Morison, and Nigel Cross. French scholars include
Abraham Moles, while Italians or writers in Italy would take in Tomás
Maldonado, Gillo Dorfles, and Andrea Branzi. Victor Papanek is a major
American thinker who wrote several books and many articles that are just
beginning to be discussed. Current thinkers like Don Norman, who has written
numerous books and articles, deserve analysis as well. Among Germans, there
are several biographies of Jan Tschichold but no sustained analysis of his
total writings. Nor are many scholars who wrote only a limited amount
studied. One problem is translations. Some writers like Siegfried Maser in
Germany or Gilbert Simondon in France have not been translated into English;
hence they remain invisible to those who do not read these theorists’
original language. Without serious study of the long line of major thinkers
who have written extensively about design, we have no basis for creating
future theory except to start from scratch each time someone has a new idea.
This situation has made it difficult to create a shared process of
theorizing design whose equivalent is central to any developed field. What
would be good to see is MA and PhD students writing theses and dissertations
about some of these thinkers and more mature scholars publishing articles on
their work. As a start, we can consider the body of writing about Lewis
Mumford who published extensively on technics as well as architecture. We
can also look to architecture where there is a tradition of writing about
the field’s thinkers such as Manfredo Tafuri or art history where there are
books and articles on Erwin Panofsky and Clement Greenberg among others. To
engage the thinkers in a field is a mark of a field’s maturity. We have not
seen it yet in design studies or design research, where design itself
remains the dominant subject of reflection and this lack of writing has
become an obstacle to developing a mature discourse.
Victor Margolin
Professor Emeritus of Design History
Department of Art History
University of Illinois, Chicago
>
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