Dear Lubomir and Paul,

Thanks for two elegant posts. These are the kind of lucid commentary 
that one expects in a good seminar.

As Lubomir notes, this is philosophy of science. In a solid doctoral 
program, one expects a serious seminar in philosophy of science. 
Whichever position you adopt, whichever traditions you follow, a good 
comparative course in philosophy of science is a critical necessity. 
As Lubomir says, this is not a design research discussion, but it is 
a vital discussion on a list where one focus is doctoral education.

One field where Scandinavia has done well is informatics -- 
information design and information studies with special attention to 
the social and human consequences of information artifacts. For a 
time, I belonged to a department where we focused on information 
science and knowledge management. Universities from Norway, Sweden, 
Denmark, Iceland, and Finland worked together to create a rich range 
of inter-university doctoral courses in philosophy of science. It is 
my view that this gave participants (faculty as well as students) a 
strong foundation in thinking -- including the design thinking that 
is so rich in Scandinavia, as contrasted with the mechanistic 
traditions that seem to be common in much information technology.

This is the tradition that gives rise to engaged scholarship. Eduardo 
noted that design is about solving problems. While Eduardo was 
writing more about design than about philosophy of science, these 
come together in engaged scholarship. Engaged scholarship is the kind 
of research we do to make a difference to human beings in the world. 
To make a meaningful difference, we must be able to understand what 
happens in the world -- as imperfectly as any understanding may be, 
we must try and we must succeed reasonably well if we are to help 
others solve the problems for which they request our services as 
designers. Andrew Van de Ven's (2007) book on engaged scholarship 
examines the links between philosophies of sciences, research 
methods, and effective research for service to others.

And now we're back to Paul and Lubomir. I'll be reading these posts 
again and thinking on them. Without arguing for a specific 
epistemology or ontology, I will argue that we cannot do very well at 
research or research-based design or at understanding evidence for 
the growing field of evidence-based design without a good foundation 
in philosophy of science and the robust comparative research 
methodology to which this perspective gives rise.

Since we engage in design research and in research-based design, 
these issues require attention.

Warm wishes,

Ken



Reference

Van de Ven, Andrew H. 2007. Engaged scholarship: A Guide for 
Organizational and Social Research. Oxford: Oxford  University Press.

Additional Resources

Some material from Van de Ven's seminars and some material from the 
book is available on Andy's home page at:

http://webpages.csom.umn.edu/smo/avandeven/AHVHOME.htm

Click on "Teaching" and note especially the course on Theory Building 
and Research Design for PhD Students and the recent presentations.


-- 

Ken Friedman
Professor

Dean, Swinburne Design
Swinburne University of Technology
Melbourne, Australia