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.