I suggest people to read up on theories.
Not that i am really litterate but i tried to read at least one book from
each, lets call it generic theoretical model, like a collected canon of
scientific theories from the hard end to the soft.
I even don't really know if my "canon" is representativ.
But i discovered that there is so much good thinking out there and most of
it is relevant to design research. That is not so strange if you consider
that design is such an interdisciplinary field of knowledge.
Such a cross-section through scientific thinking helped me to avoid the most
extreem pitfalls and dogmatic possitions, like extreem relativism, and i
have today a pragmatic possition looking at theories as tools.
An example:
Jean Scneider wrote:
>If you decide to observe a designer/a team designing (I think it was >your
example?), what you will do is observations, and possibly construct >a model
of the process.
>I am not even sure that "generalization" (I mean : finding the
>commonalities between different sets of observations, for instance) will
>ever construct a theory. It will make a more general model.
I am thinking that Grounded Theory is doing exactly what Jean is talking
about. There is written a lot about this. I use it as a basic reference but
relate to it in a "soft" way in my own work.
To Rosan: you seem to have reached an extreem possition (waking up that
morning) in your attempt to make the world fit into simple explenatory
models. There are actually some observations which are very predictable.
Most of the time, if i fall i hit the ground :) The journey of "Voyager" to
the outer rims of our solar system is another very powerful example. The
margins where extreemly tight but all predictions where fulfilled.
I think some aspects of designing relate to this, others not at all.
It is also in the very nature of science to challenge and overthrow
explanatory models so that they eighther become history or are expanded.
(Newton was not replaced by Einstein)
For what its worth...
Birger Sevaldson
|