Ken - I agree with your uptake on the term positivist here, and while I do consider this a post to an email list, and not totally explicated, it deserves better than to be bandied.
I don't mean to bandy "positivist" - but I do mean to apply the term as a discrimination to point to our unquestioned obeisance to the paradigm. There's a difference between positivism in a philosophical sense, as a chosen tradition that prefers to understand the world as largely objective exhibiting behaviors which can be agreed upon among multiple observers, defined and measured, in the Bertrand Russell sense. There is nothing to say that's wrong in any way at all. But I am also saying that the notions of research framed as basic and applied, and clinical, derive from an epistemological mindset that categorizes research purposes based on how research is used. These distinctions were developed and institutionalized when the positivist, objectivist view was completely dominant. I think the distinctions are still largely unquestioned, and because they are used in funding categories of research, they continue to exert real meaning and power past their time of applicability.
While I cannot fully justify the claim, I'd like to encourage thinking the notions of "applied" and "basic" are largely inapplicable in design epistemologies. In design practice, and research about design, we are dealing with applied questions almost entirely. Fundamental design principles, or our equivalent to basic research, are not the same in designing fields as in physics or chemistry. And these disciplines in which basic research most applies are (usually) unquestionably positivist in epistemological and methodological tradition. I don’t know of a "constructivist chemistry," but if you had such a research agenda, it would be a hard sell in their funding traditions.
I think Don Norman's use of fundamental is helpful here, and even if it really means the same thing as Basic to most, there seems to be a design equivalency. I think we have limited our research possibilities by falling in with these outdated terms, when perhaps we don't have anything better to offer, and we are often required by institutional to adopt the terms our "clients" or funders use. In any case, I was hoping to open an inquiry, not close the door on an specific terminology.
All the best, Peter
-----Original Message-----
From: Ken Friedman [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Thursday, June 16, 2011 8:53 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Innovation and Design Research
Dear Peter,
There's a lot to like and much with which I agree in your post, but I'm going to take issue with one sentence. I'd like to suggest that you use the word "positivist" more carefully. Many people who use such terms as basic, applied, and clinical are not "postivists" in the confused sense with which this term is often bandied about.
And then, another group of people recognize that "positive" research is simply "positive" because it posits something we can investigate or test rather than "normative" research that prescribes.
It's not clear to me that using these frames requires us "to bend our purposes to fit completely different institutional traditions."
There are many kinds of questions one may ask with respect to the issues we deal with, and that means that the methods and frames we use are equally varied.
Yours,
Ken
Peter Jones wrote"
--snip--
I don't use basic, applied,
and clinical research as distinctions in design or innovation research because these are drawn from a positivist scientific epistemology that requires us to bend our purposes to fit completely different institutional traditions.
--snip--
|