Thanks, Dick, for this prudent and composed and generous intervention!

Jonas

__________



At 12:24 Uhr -0400 31.03.2007, Richard Buchanan wrote:
>Colleagues,
>
>When I hear a comment such as "There is some confusion I think about the
>core problems of researching design thinking" I am always amused.  Not to
>pick on Terry but to raise a more general issue, I wonder what the person is
>really trying to say.  Is it a comment about confusion or is it really a
>complaint that people don't see the issues in the same way as the speaker
>sees them. 
>
>If it were really so simple as people getting it right or getting it wrong,
>then life would be easy and research would involve merely technical issues.
>The problem is--and it is, indeed, a wicked problem--that people see things
>in different ways.  And the different ways each may have very reasonable
>grounds and lead to useful, interesting, and even true insights if we
>understood those grounds.
>
>An important philosopher of the twentieth century once remarked that the
>outstanding fact of intellectual history is the persistence of different
>ways of seeing the world.  One can cope with this fact either by dismissing
>other ways as confused and misguided or by exploring alternative approaches
>with a willing suspension of disbelief (aka tolerance).  This does not mean
>abandoning one's own beliefs, but it does mean recognizing that alternative
>views may throw important light on the reality of what we are studying.
>Between dogmatism and relativism there is a middle ground of intelligent
>discussion and argument--a middle ground of inquiry.
>
>I thought that by this point in the development of design we could give up
>the idea of a monistic truth and get on with inquiry in all of its forms,
>suited to the complexity of truth.  Monism is certainly one reaction to the
>complexity of the world--for example, the complexity of design--but I
>believe that it too often leads to mere semantic disputes and controversy
>rather than substantial inquiry.
>
>For example, Herb Simon certainly recognized his theory of design as
>"reductive" in intent--he says exactly this at one point.  But one does not
>have to share his reductive philosophy in order to appreciate what he
>accomplished--and to perceive what he did not accomplish and what requires
>other approaches.
>
>A sophisticated pluralism is needed in design today more than ever if we are
>to advance our understandings of the field.  There may, indeed, be some
>design research that is simply wrong in fact or method or conclusion.  But
>more likely, researchers are struggling down different pathways toward
>understanding.  Whether we agree with them or not, they need and deserve
>sympathetic and critical readers who can engage their core ideas and help
>them to move forward.  Dabbling in "fallacies" without understanding the
>philosophical roots and direction of an inquiry is just too precious.  Chris
>Alexander points out the irony of the limited understanding of logic that
>this involves.
>
>A sophisticated pluralism--sympathetic and critical at the same time--is
>vitally important to building sustained conversations in design today.
>
>Richard
>
>Richard Buchanan
>Carnegie Mellon University
>
>
>On 3/31/07 6:44 AM, "Terence Love" <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
>excerpt:
>
>>  The only area that is really specific to design research is research that
>focuses on the thinking, feeling, creating, deciding, judging and other
>internal human activities involved in designing.
>
>There is some confusion I think about the core problems of researching
>design thinking.
>
>Some see it as too hard and prefer to retreat into superficial simple and
>fallacious representation of what happens when someone is designing, such as
>models of design process, reflective practice etc. I agree that it can be
>useful even if it isn't true to what happens.
>
>It's a problem when people hold it up that it is the reality of human design
>thinking. It's a kind of self-delusion and there are several reasons people
>offer:
>1. To do otherwise is too hard.
>2. Designers who have become design researchers can't understand the
>material
>3. If everyone does things differently then how can you make a theory about
>it (your comment).
>4. Its too difficult to bridge the different disciplines that need to be
>brought together.
>
>3. is important to tackle first.  At root, there is no overall difference in
>the way that we as individuals do designing. We do it biologically and we
>have similar bodies. There is a similarity at a very deep level of
>biological processes. Theorising can reliably start at this point.  The
>problem is that humans at a more superficial level of thoughts, feelings,
>don't design the same way - not even if they repeat the same thought in
>quick succession. The problem is that it is at these and higher levels that
>>the design research field has tried to make theory and assumed it reality