Dear Keith,
I very much like your post!
Your notion of the cognitive power of a theory to transform
our understanding fits well with the puzzlement removing [1]
and demystifying [2] qualities that I look for in a theory of
designing, and by which it may be judged. Your example of how
a theory transformed your understanding of Faulkner's "The
Sound and the Fury" is excellent. I only remember this as a
"dark and difficult" novel, but your theory makes me want to
read it again. This is what a useful theory can do: make you
want to look again at something, and think differently about
it. It's one of the ways we place, piece by piece,
understanding beneath our research feet, I think.
So, I strongly agree with you, the show aspect of a theory is
important. It's the aspect that actually gets used. It's
therefore the aspect we should judge a theory by. If we
carefully compare our new way of seeing against some suitable
part of the real world, we can test our theory, both what it
shows us, and, by implication, it's internal coherence and
robustness.
Also, describing Grounded Theory as functioning like literary
criticism has quite transformed my understanding of how
Grounded Theory is supposed to work. I've been somewhat
mystified by this for a long time. And the Grounded Theory
practitioners I've asked for help on this haven't managed to
clarify things much. So, thank you for this too!
Following your post, there's more I'd like to say on use and
testing of theories of designing. But I'll put this in a
separate post.
Best regards,
Tim
References
[1] Wilkes, K: 1989. Explanation -- how not to miss the
point, in Montefiore, A and Noble, D (eds), Goals, No
Goals, and Own Goals, Unwin Hyman, London, pp 194–210.
[2] Boden, M A: 1962. The paradox of explanation, Proc
Aristotelian Soc, ns, pp 159-178. Reprinted in Boden M A,
1981, Minds and Mechanisms, Ithaca, NY, Cornell University
Press.
================================================
On Dec 19, 2012, at 23:16 , Keith Russell wrote:
> Dear Time,
>
> yes, I agree about the practical usefulness notion of testing theory.
>
> In the case of my own theories, I also see, as part of the practical use, the cognitive power or authority of a theory. That is, a theory, in the humanities, must, as part of its practical application, be able to transform our understanding as in "now I understand".
>
> So, if I were to say, for example, that after struggling for many years with William Faulkner's novel, The Sound and The Fury I came up with a theoretical insight such that the novel, in my theory, can be viewed as the account of an Oikois mind - the mind of the family, such that each voice is part of a family voice, much as is the case in Greek Tragedy. Which, when you boil it down, is a claim that the novel is best viewed as a Greek Tragedy even though it is presented as a modern novel.
>
> This theoretical observation allowed me to illuminate my understanding of the novel such that it went from being a dark and difficult text to being an open book.
>
> Ok, so someone can say this is not a theory but rather a critical observation but I am allowing that the "show" aspect of the original meaning of "theory" is still a crucial feature required of any theory: just what does this theory allow us to see that we couldn't previously see?
>
> Accepting that models might be little theories or parts of larger theories, we can come to view the processes of literary criticism (after New Criticism) as being like model making and or mapping. Literary critics mostly map and model particular texts and groups of texts based on authors. Some go on to organise, from their models, larger models of what was happening at a particular period such as the Romantic Movement.
>
> My point here is, that literary criticism functions a lot like Grounded Theory (or perhaps that should be said the other way around). Which allows us to bridge to design theory.
>
> The topics of Grounded Theory, and abductive logic, have frequently come up on this list. With Grounded Theory one is able to use the specific information from a particular case or event to develop useful insights and maybe even larger models that might then be useful beyond the particular case.
>
> I see much of design theory falling into the Grounded Theory or Literary Criticism modes of theorising. Which is also to point out that talking about theory without talking about methods is be caught short.
>
> Hope this is of some use.
>
>
>
> Grounded Theory - abduction - literary criticism
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