In the context of policy work, where one also speaks of design, or engineering of policy technologies in reponse to problems, there can be real room for humility--the willingness to revise one's paradigmatic biases, or basically admit that one might not grasp the fact of the matter, the "problem" staring at us, or to grasp its import (because of our own normative biases). Jean Luc Marion has written of saturated phenomena, that is, phenomena that exceeds our epistemic field, and so we cannot accommodate its offerings. WE don't see anything there--are blinded--and so don’t grasp issues and problems to address. Rather by imposing our field on the phenomena we end up, as it were, looking into mirror, grasping, in idolatry, what we see "into" it. Here we see only ourselves, and use that as a standard measure of all things, and this seems to me like pride. But humility can be effected, perhaps. For instance, when her research started, Caroline Wang could not get policy thinkers to grasp the horrendous healthcare conditions in Yunnan China; she developed photovoice as a participatory research method and collected images of these conditions, and got policy makers to sit down and look at them--somehow these images could effect some kind of semiotic / epistemic conversion in the minds of these officials: finally these grasped the import of the state of affairs. These representamen-photos called forth, signed, ethical responses. SO photos, quite interestingly, when properly applied, can effect the "gifting", can help participants be gifted, i.e., receive that which discloses on its own terms. The humble capacity to be open to disclosure seems to me a kind of design thinking that is good, focal, central...Theorizing design thinking needs, it seems to me, to explore these kinds of pedagogical supports and aids also, and all this might come under what Susan Petrilli labels as a semio-ethic study.
Ramblings...
Jude
-----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 Derek Miller
Sent: Thursday, 31 March, 2011 4:07 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Humility and Designing
Harold: Thank you for the references. Some familiar some not. They are now in my to-read file (next to my guilt and the Arc of the Covenant).
Stefanie: I think I need to be clear on two points. The first concerns humility. I meant something specific by that, which my "PS" joke may have complicated. I didn't meant designers are, or are not, humble. What I meant was, an inherent part of engaging in the act of design — and therefore a natural tendency of designers as professionals — is to embrace the state of not knowing the solution to a problem on setting out.
The overall task may be good or bad, wise or unwise, benevolent or malicious. One may also approach that task with personal humility or arrogance. But whether designing a chair, a missile, or a slaughterhouse, the state of questioning remains. This should be contrasted with other processes where the state of not knowing is absent or neglected. For example, all ritual — by definition — is scripted, and therefore is not an act of design, but rote performance.
Also, in going from "problem to planning" (as we explain it), design junctures are generally overlooked or papered over with best practices, or standard operating procedures. Design is therefore absent, and one indicator (if one accepts the theory as a foundation here) is the possibility but procedural neglect of a design process.
If you do not face a moment when you don't know the answer, embrace that, and then start working through that moment, you cannot be engaged in an act of design. You can, however, be involved in many other acts.
On "design thinking," this harkens back to a point I was arguing earlier about the need to build theory if design is indeed committed (as a profession) to earning its place in the academy (or maintaining it, etc.) Metaphor is not theory. Design thinking, per se, is — in my view — a metaphor. So is "blue sky thinking" and "groupthink." Until I can empirically differentiate it from another phenomenon, it can be nothing but. It is a rhetorical devise to communicate a cluster of related ideas absent a theory to unify them.
If we are serious about theorizing about design (and I think we should be!) then we need to break through into the hard work of empirical analysis, and people who choose to theorize on design need to be trained to grapple with theory and reasearch.
One last thing: Design is not unlike political science, in that in order to build a research design, one need to draw from numerous disciplines but remain responsive to the standards of proper analysis. You may be committed to asking questions about design (as political scientists are committed to asking questions about politics or political systems), but the real methods training does NOT necessarily come from reading political scientists. If design is to raise its own game, it needs to stop just reading design theory because its too new. It need to "dig deep" and hit the good stuff so it can come wisely back to its thematic concerns.
So by all means, research and theorize on design, because — leaning on Gertrude Stein here — there really is a "there there.". But I'm unconvinced that "design thinking" is the vehicle for it. For example, how do you know design thinking when you see it? How do you falsify that claim? How do you measure it? When is generative about embracing it? That is, what is the theory that give it distinctive form?
But beware, again from Stein, that there may be no there there. One needs to be judicious in choosing the elephants we chase…
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National Institute of Education (Singapore) http://www.nie.edu.sg
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