lubomir,

you made a proposal that is likely too big for anyone to handle. while i
agree with some of your points, even if you were the president of a
university or of the united states, you couldn't realize such a proposal
because you are dealing first of all with people, second with their chosen
identities, and third with long traditions that live on beyond the life-span
of individuals, you included. as admirable as a reconceptualization of
science is, there have been many proposals like that. i cannot think of
anyone that succeeded.

this is an example of a design "problem" that cannot be "solved" by the
sheer will and intention of any one designer, as it involves the lives of
stakeholders who need to be brought on board and they are not likely to
follow anyone but want to realize their own stake in any reorganization. on
a small scale i have seen this in germany after the 1968 student revolution
where all kinds of new faculties were created, most of which later went back
to order disciplines, maybe with a small twist. the u.s. is actually more
open to try new things, but as i said, should you become president of a
reputable university you would have a hell of a time putting your proposal
to work

my preference would be to work within one's community, here of designers who
you might influence by example and by creating benefits for them from
adopting your proposal. should you succeed among friends, others may model
you.

by the way, reorganizing science around solving problem situation sounds
pretty much like reorganizing science around design, making design thinking
into a super discipline.

this suggests another word: superdisciplinary

klaus

p.s., i have to be nonresponsive for a while. i need to do something else

-----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 Lubomir
S. Popov
Sent: Sunday, August 12, 2007 4:04 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Interdisciplinary research

Dear Klaus,

You bounce back some interesting questions:
-- what does it mean for outsiders to transcend them (disciplinary
boundaries)?
do we have the power to tell medical professionals that we don't care about
medicine?
-- (regarding new organization of inquiry for design) the problem the way i
see it is in accepting the boundaries of other disciplines in how we define
ourselves.

Answering these questions will take me in a different direction than the one
I have already charted. These questions emerge again in a disciplinary
environment. I am suggesting a new kind of organization of science. What
exactly, it is far beyond my reach. There should be philosophers of science
and technology that should bother about that more than I do.

In brief, I would mention that one approach is to organize science not by
disciplines and then search for a way to stick them, but to organize science
around problem situations. Because these problem situations are billions,
the only feasible attempt in that direction is to create a methodological
organization of science. Science as a methodology for understanding problem
situations rather than as a knowledge bank. Currently disciplines are
knowledge banks.
Methodology is second to that. Research is about knowledge creation.

Traditional disciplinary science examines objects with the purpose to
understand them and to develop information about them. It is object
oriented. Because the objects have many aspects, it takes several lifetimes
to get into them. People simplify their work by focusing on one aspect and
developing a discipline about it. That is why we now discuss the problem
with sticking together the pieces of knowledge developed in different
disciplines. And all the talk about inter/multi/trans disciplinarity is a
consequence of this aspect-focused organization of science and the problems
that arise from this particularization.

By the way, the particularization emerges because of the goals of science to
produce knowledge about the object -- the object for itself and by itself,
regardless any problem situation and practical needs of the human kind.
Academicians are content when they produce new knowledge for itself and by
itself. Disciplinary departmentalization is helping them to manage the sea
of issues by specializing on particular aspect or issue.

(Simplified) At the other end are engineers who need knowledge for problem
solving. They do not care about knowledge by itself and for itself. They are
interested in relevant knowledge, even if they have to cut through several
disciplines. In most cases that is necessary.
Then engineers start looking for ways to make this cut in their lifetime,
ways to put together this knowledge. In this situation they experience the
problem with departmentalization of science and start searching for a new
organization. The problem is that they are not paid for that and very soon
they have to leave this problem and focus on the engineering projects they
have.

There is a disconnect between the communities who experience the problem
(engineers) and the communities who are expected to solve such a problem
(philosophers/methodologists). There is a disconnect in their professional
problems and goals due to the reward structures that are currently supported
by society.

A new organization of science might be developed around the study of problem
situations. The problem situation becomes the object of study. So, one pure
object might create or become a part of many different problem situations
depending on changes in its environment and the teleology of the humankind.

I expect that the changes will start from within. However, the changes will
be spurred by pressure from outside. The pressure will be not to change the
disciplinary organization of science, but to provide better information for
engineering solutions. Then in the "basic-applied-R&D" continuum certain
restructuring processes will start and will continue until a new
organization is found. I don't expect that anyone can command medical
researchers to change their disciplinary boundaries. But the pressure
(including rewards) on them to operate more efficiently and their own search
for relevant knowledge will force them to invent a new organization of
science.

At this stage I propose a problem situation-related organization of science.
If we start working on this proposal, we will see that it will lead us away
from disciplinary thinking. Of course, we would not be able to cut our ties
with disciplinary thinking until we develop the new organizational
structures. Here is an interesting problem:
How to distance ourselves from disciplinary thinking and still use it as a
stepping stone until we develop a new type of thinking.

The problem-oriented science will change its focus from ontology towards
methodology. Epistemology will gain bigger importance than before because of
the primary role of methodology. In the long run we are looking for
problem-solvers, engineers, rather than conventional scientists. We can call
these people methodologists. They will be trained in methods rather than in
content. (I do not exclude content in full. It is always necessary.)

You can imagine the enormity of such change and the multitude of problems
that have to be resolved. It is a nice challenge for philosophers and
methodologists. But, until their reward structure is pushing them towards
traditional problems in their fields, I doubt whether they will focus on
this task. It is a vicious cycle that has to be broken in some way. I
believe in external, societal pressure.
However, when this pressure will accumulate critical force, I can not
predict. Until then, there will be thousands of discussions by disciplinary
scientists who are already experiencing the problem, but do not have the
tools to tackle it. I see this as a personal tragedy.
I have been waiting all my life for the solution of particular problems that
will enable me to resolve my focal problems. However, because of slow
movement in the scientific community, I have to slow down to almost a halt
and to look for other problems that are feasible under current
circumstances.

Kind regards,

Lubomir Popov, Ph.D.

At 11:36 PM 8/11/2007, Klaus Krippendorff wrote:
>good post,
>lubomir,
>but since it is the disciplines that define their discourse and its
>boundary, what does it mean for outsiders to transcend them? do we have
>the power to tell medical professionals that we don't care about medicine?
>you say we need to build a new organization of inquiry for design. i
>agree, and as you know i have written precisely about that. the problem
>the way i see it is in accepting the boundaries of other disciplines in
>how we define ourselves. for example, as soon as you say design is not
>engineering, not medicine, not mathematics, you tie your identity the
>discursive boundaries that other disciplines draw for themselves. my
>approach is to clarify design from what designers would accept as doing
>and show it is such a light that it is respected as such by others.
>klaus
>
>-----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 Lubomir S. Popov
>Sent: Friday, August 10, 2007 4:42 PM
>To: [log in to unmask]
>Subject: Interdisciplinary research
>
>Just some musing ...
>
>In the last ten days we had several posts oriented or tangent to the
>interdisciplinary nature of design research. Most of the posts looked
>at interdisciplinarity as a way to bridge gaps. This is a typical
>disciplinary position -- bridging or overlapping. It comes from the
>disciplinary organization of science and conceptualizes this problem
>from a disciplinary perspective. In all cases, such approach is better
>than working within strict disciplinary boundaries.
>However, the disciplinary nature of the approach pushes down its ceiling.
>
>The issue is how to transcend the disciplinary organization of science
>and build a new organization of inquiry for design. This is not only a
>problem for the design professions, but for all professions as well, or
>at least for most of the professions engaged with some kind of
>engineering. I mention this in order to delineate the enormity of such
>endeavor. The problem is not resolved in any of the professions. Some
>professions have limited success, others none at all.
>
>There are a number of approaches in preliminary stages, ranging from
>organizing individual agents in a team to inventing new methodologies.
>In the 1970's, there were several attempts to resolve this problem, but
>I haven't heard yet about a viable solution. One of the proposals was
>very abstract, in its initial stage. It suggested to build a conceptual
>configuration of the object of study and to use this configuration for
>organizing the research effort. It talked about aspects/facets of the
>object of study, but stopped short of talking in disciplinary terms.
>(The concept of interdisciplinary research is still an outgrowth of
>disciplinary
>thinking.) Talking in non-disciplinary terms was the biggest success of
>this approach.
>However, I haven't seen it operationalized to the point that it can be
used.
>
>Kind regards,
>
>Lubomir Popov, Ph.D.