terry,
i hate to be short to your length and carefully worded elaboration of
ontology and epistemology
i appreciate you trying to make the concepts useful in very narrow problem
driven areas
what i think you do not realize, and if you do, you should at least admit
it, that by locating epistemology in the relationship between real world
objects and theories about these real world objects you identify yourself
with the cartesian paradigm with the kind of representationalism that
philosophers have tried to get out of since vico, which has been recognized
as a failure in conceptions of perception since gibson, etc. etc.
your need for an ontology is the logical consequence of adopting this view.
it has nothing to do with how objects are.
i found the conception of humans that this view entails dispicable, and the
notion of epistemology eroded to simple representationalism.

klaus krippendorff
gregory bateson term professor for cybernetics, language, and culture
the annenberg school for communication
university of pennsylvania
3620 walnut street
philadelphia, pa 19104.6220
phone: 215.898.7051 (O); 215.545.9356 (H)
fax: 215.898.2024 (O); 215.545.9357 (H)
usa


-----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 Terence Love
Sent: Wednesday, April 21, 2004 11:07 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Theory-focused understanding of ontolog & epistemology


Hello,

During the 80s and 90s, I worked on addressing theory foundations of design
research. I found it is much easier to define ontology and epistemology in
specific contexts. General definitions are very hard to project to local
analysis - particularly for words like ontology and epistemology that are
used as a 'grab bag' into which to put anything that is convenient. Their
main use is in discursive brevity rather than precision. ('Research' is a
similar problematic 'grab bag' word as is 'knowledge' - in each case,
clarity of analysis is gained by focusing on what they contain, e.g.
'gathering data', analysing data', 'making theory', 'memorising
information', 'reading' etc).

There are of course serious problems with the definitions of ontology and
epistemology in research contexts because their definitions depend on
theoretical perspective. They are separate concepts in
positivist/objectivist perspectives yet overlap to different extents in
post-positivist theory perspectives - or any theory perspectives that
include human influence on cognition. (This is a central theme of Guba's
'Paradigm Dialog', Sage).

Careful definition of ontology and epistemology from a specific use is
easier and more precise - especially when the details of the specific use is
epistemologically unpacked.

An approach that has worked for me for several years on defining ontology
and epistemology in the context of research goes as follows. I've separated
it into pieces for convenience:

1. Theory is the central focus. The primary productive aim of
researchers is to produce new theory.
2. Theory is a special kind of representation of real world objects and
their behaviour.
3. Researchers aim to produce a special kind of theory that is:
usefully representative of real world objects and behaviours; communicable;
unambiguous; usable across a variety of contexts; reliable; testable;
coherent with other theories; and in a symbolic language whose rules of
manipulation result in accurate predictions of real world objects and
behaviours. A central interest of research theory is to represent _causal_
behaviours as this enables the main aspect of utility - prediction. The
preliminary exploratory initial stages of theory building may, however,
focus on the weaker relationships of correlation between behaviours. This
is central to a hypothetical speculative phase of theory representation.
4. To fulfil the above criteria, the special forms of 'research theory'
representation require formal technically-defined representational symbolic
languages that have their own representative objects, and behavioural
relations between those objects.
5. The picture thus far is of two parallel streams: 'real world objects
and their behaviours'; and 'theory representation objects with their
behaviours and relationships that are arranged to represent real world
objects and behaviours'.

From the above position on theory, defining 'ontology' and 'epistemology'
becomes fairly straightforward.

1. There is ontology of being of 'real world objects'. The core issue
of ontology in this context is the units of being and their boundaries, i.e.
what is an 'X'? For example, addressing questions such as 'What is an
organisation?' (I.e. referring to the real world group of people and
behaviours). In the physical word this is brought to a peak with the
concerns of physicists at quantum and cosmic levels about real objects. In
the mid-range, there are many ontological concerns of disciplines in the
social studies and psychological areas that I suspect will prove irrelevant
with increasing information and theory emerging from brain research. This is
because many of the 'objects of concern' are abstracted in ways that
facilitate making theory that is relatively second hand and remote. I
suspect that this applies for example questions involving romantically
defined emotions like 'What is the ontology of happiness? (where happiness
is seen as a real world phenomenon)' Instead, I suspect we will see the
development of new interests in the ontology of ethologically-defined
behaviours. To recap, the focus in this aspect of ontology is on 'real
world' objects in their unrepresented form.
2. In parallel is the ontology of being of 'theory representations'.
The foci of this aspect of ontology are the theory objects used in
representation and their behaviours and relationships. In the above question
of 'What is an organisation?' the 'theory ontology' focus is on: the concept
of organisation; its beng in representational symbolic language; the
exisitnce in that symbolic language of particular behaviours and
relationships that are of interest; and the exisitence of interconnections
of this new theory representation with other more established and better
justified theory objects. To recap, the focus of this aspect of ontology is
on the being of the theory objects and their behaviours and relationships.

At this point, defining epistemology emerges effortlessly:

1. Epistemology is the study of the relationships between the 'real
world' objects and their behaviours' and the research-based 'theory objects
and their behaviours that are used as representations of real world objects
and behaviours'.
2. Central concerns of epistemology and theory building in research
contexts are: that symbolic theory representations can be manipulated
according to rules in ways that will then result in correct prediction of
future, as yet unknown, behaviours in the real world; and that these
predictions correlate closely with the outcomes of independent empirical
data gathered from a real world enactment of the predicted situation. The
primary aim is to theoretically model causal behaviours.
3. Defined in symbolic terms, theory objects and their behaviours and
relationships also become real world objects, behaviours and relationships
so there is a natural recursion.

Following this 'theory-focused' path to defining ontology and epistemology
helps clarify relationships and differences between research and design
activities.

1. Researchers build theory representations of real world objects and
their behaviours. Their central focus is creating theoretical presentations
that enable prediction of behaviours - in the main through building
theories that model real world causality in ways that can be manipulated
according to the ontological characteristics of the symbolic
representational languages that are used to emulate real world situations.
2. Designers create representations (designs). The two main foci of
their choice of symbolic language are: as a means of unambiguously
conveying the manufacturing specifications of the objects to be actualised;
and as a means of communicating their thoughts about the form of the
designed outcome and its intended behaviours. These are epistemologically
different interests from those of researchers and usually require different
forms of symbolic languages whose purposes and use-values are different
from those used by researchers.

Designers that have also learned to undertake and understand research use
both modes.

Best wishes,

Terry
____________________

Dr. Terence Love
Love Design and Research
PO Box 226
Quinns Rocks
Western Australia 6030
Tel/Fax: +61 (0)8 9305 7629
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www.love.com.au

Curtin Research Fellow
Dept of Design
Curtin University
Western Australia
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Visiting Research Fellow
Institute of Entrepreneurship and Enterprise Development
Management School
Lancaster University
Lancaster, UK
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____________________