Jon said
>First, to the comment about Polanyi from Chris, there is no question that
>Vincenti drew from Polyani. But I would not be in a position to say whether or
>not he is "guilty of a rather limited interpretation."
I'd better explain myself here. I haven't seen Vincenti's original yet so I am
working third hand (which is why I said "hints that he may be"). When invoking
Michael Polanyi on the need to understand operational principles before
designing he may have ignored one of Polanyi's central ideas (or at least the
one that I like best) - the the part played by tacit knowledge in those
intuitive leaps that precede the rigorous construction of knowledge in science.
Polanyi felt that the hypothesis was as significant as the subsequent
investigation and that seems a pretty good analogy for the generative idea.
This seems to be the strand of thought that led Polanyi to his first definition
of tacit knowledge which, in turn, provides a good way to understand the craft
knowledge which informs a lot of everyday artefacts.
It also raises the possibility that generative ideas are Good Things. A lot of
postings have emphasised the need to get out of the trap of a single early idea
that prevents progressive or creative thought but one could take the opposite
view that having a vision, and then investing time and effort in making it work
wonderfully well, is a mature way to approach designing. We often tell our
students that the only bad idea is no idea - almost any starting point is
useful if you have a way of investigating it developing it.
best wishes from Sheffield
Chris Rust
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Professor Chris Rust
Art and Design Research Centre
Sheffield Hallam University UK
www.shu.ac.uk/design
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