Hi Chuck,
Thanks for your message.
Chuck wrote>>
"An effective theory is one whose purpose is clear and that defines
and relates its elements in terms of the situations it addresses. It
clearly communicates this structured knowledge and supports the
actions necessary to realize goals regarding the circumstances it
models. It provides evidence of its own effectiveness and produces
useful knowledge."
One way to analyse this definition is by looking at it through the eyes of
the different groups of people who might be interested?
All disciplines have a spread of theory expertise from a relatively small
number of 'discipline experts' to a large number of people who have a
superficial understanding of the discipline and its and theory. The
discipline theory experts are obsessed with getting the theory right in
terms of the content of the discipline. Those of us with a superficial
understanding don't worry about the theory being right in terms of the
content of the discipline. We don't understand it anyway. Instead we make up
stories that make the words of the theories make some sort of connection to
our own experiences - regardless of whether these interpretations are true
to the meaning of the theories.
In many disciplines, this spectrum of theory expertise is bi-polar. There is
a bunch of people at one end and a different bunch of people at the other.
In disciplines with a practice element there are three bunches. The middle
bunch are practitioners who sometimes use theories in what they practice.
Outside the spectrum is there is a fourth bunch who are experts at 'theory
about theory', i.e. their discipline is the study of the properties of
theory.
So, just to save my fingers, how about calling them
A - people with a superficial involvement of a discipline and a superficial
understanding of theory. An example is the understanding of most of us of
climate change theory. Hands up, who has recently checked the new versions
of the upper atmosphere energy flow formulae?
B - Discipline practitioners. In Design - us as designers.
C - Discipline theory experts. In Design - us as theory-based researchers
and theory developers.
D - Specialists in theorising about the properties of theory. These are
usually epistemologists, or specialists such as Stegmüller of the structure
and dynamics of theories, or specialists in the theory of knowledge etc.
(Those wearing the pointy hat with the big D are usually found in the
corner).
Depends which of these hats you are wearing when you're looking at a
definition of 'what is a theory' because the A, B, C and D hats are very
different.
So to explore your rubric, let's have a look.
"An effective theory is one whose purpose is clear and that defines
and relates its elements in terms of the situations it addresses. It
clearly communicates this structured knowledge and supports the
actions necessary to realize goals regarding the circumstances it
models. It provides evidence of its own effectiveness and produces
useful knowledge."
We can start to take this apart and that starts to reveal the A, B, C, D
nature of it.
1. 'An effective theory' - Effective for whom? Effectiveness for people in
the A, B, C, D groups is very different.
2. 'Whose purpose is clear' - Clear to whom? How clear and what kind of
clarity depends on whether you are in A, B, C or D
3. 'Defines and relates its elements in terms of the situations it
addresses' - What people see as the elements and situations being addressed
depends on which hat you are wearing (even for the D hat)
4. "Clearly communicates" - What is clear to an A may be very unclear to a
C and vice versa.
5. " Supports the actions necessary to realize goals regarding the
circumstances it models" - The actions those wearing the A hat (users?) are
interested in are likely very different from those wearing the B hat
(designers) and way different from those wearing the C hat and off the
planet different from those wearing the D hat (and still sat in the corner
-sad).
6. " It provides evidence of its own effectiveness" - whether a theory is
effective depends on which of the hats you are wearing because it depends on
what you are interested in. Often for those wearing the A or B hats, theory
can have other roles that are really unrelated. An example, many years ago I
used to really enjoy designing and making furniture and especially custom
fine wood kitchens. At a certain point it became obvious that our primary
role was creating wonderful dinner party conversations and the design of the
furniture and kitchens was an incidental by product ( a friend went further
and suggested his primary task in life was creation of beautiful
wood-shavings with the furniture and carvings being a bi-product). Evidence
of effectiveness depends on perspective and purpose of using the theory.
Providing evidence of effectiveness is not necessarily related to
epistemological accuracy or avoidance of fallacy.
7. " It produces useful knowledge" - The kind of knowledge that is useful
depends on what is useful to each of us - regardless of the hats. And the
usefulness of the knowledge can be other than what is in the theory.
Suhrawardi (the uncle) apparently said: I went to see a man and we sat
talking. There was a camel plodding past and I asked him 'What does that
make you think of?' 'Food' he said. 'What? Since when was camel meat food?'.
'No it is not like that' the man said. Everything makes me think of food'.
So it is with A, B, C and D.
Best wishes,
Terry
____________________
Dr. Terence Love, FDRS, AMIMechE, PMACM
School of Design and Art
Director Design-focused Research Group, Design Out Crime Research Group
Researcher, Digital Ecosystems and Business Intelligence Institute
Associate, Planning and Transport Research Centre
Curtin University, PO Box U1987, Perth, Western Australia 6845
Mob: 0434 975 848, Fax +61(0)8 9305 7629, [log in to unmask]
Visiting Professor, Member of Scientific Council
UNIDCOM/ IADE, Lisbon, Portugal
Honorary Fellow, Institute of Entrepreneurship and Enterprise Development
Management School, Lancaster University, Lancaster, UK
____________________
-----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 Charles
Burnette
Sent: Wednesday, 12 May 2010 10:53 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Theory and Theory Construction in Design
Ken, Terry, and all
I like McNeil's eleven characteristics of any general theory but don't
think they are very helpful in clarifying how to articulate a theory.
There are several points that seem simply arbitrary. He does make good
points about coherent levels of discourse and their relationships but
gives no clues about what is required to do this. My own view is that
the structure of a general theory must be repeated at each level in
its definition. The content changes of course.
I have found the following rubric very helpful and have based my
theory building on it.
"An effective theory is one whose purpose is clear and that defines
and relates its elements in terms of the situations it addresses. It
clearly communicates this structured knowledge and supports the
actions necessary to realize goals regarding the circumstances it
models. It provides evidence of its own effectiveness and produces
useful knowledge."
Maybe Terry would give this a work through to conceptually specify an
epistemic approach to design research. Then I'd understand what he is
proposing.
Best regards,
Chuck
tics.
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