Dear All
I've read Ken's explanation with great profit, but also the others have taught me many nuances of the concept. I sense in Terry some desire to move away from the constrictions of RW's definition - which is of course not a bad one, RW's definition I mean. But with Terry I have myself thought it most useful if not always to not stick to all of RW's 10 attributes, but to use the notion of a Wicked Problem more loosely, in the sense that the problem is so complex for the very reason that there is no easy consensus on what the problem is - and this not because we don't know how to fix it, but because we cannot always agree on what exactly is it we are to fix, what is the goal, and hence the probem. The wickedness derives from the contestation of axiological paradigms. My own sense is that this is the key idea in RW's concept of a wicked problem. We cannot agree what is the goal that we need to achieve here. So it's not like 5 engineers staring at a VW gearbox and wondering what in the world is wrong with it - here the problem is tame, they all have the same goal, which is for it to shft gears smoothly. A wicked problem on the other hand, is more like "poverty" - what exactly is the problem with poverty, and part of the wickedness of the problem of poverty is that there may well be no consensus on what we mean by poverty. Deprivation of what? Is it just monetary? Well to some yes, but others like Sabina Alkire and Sen and might say, not, its not just that, what about capabilities, freedoms, other multidimensional goods, and their deprivation. For this reason, every different way of problematizing the issue is an insinuation of a different solution. There's the phenomenon, but Richard Posner might say, look here the community is not getting the wealth it needs, Sen might say, well its that people lack basic freedoms, maybe I (as a natural law theorist) would say, look here where are the instantiations of Finnis' seven basic goods, as might Alkire I think, etc. Or the Pope might ask, isn’t the problem about spiritual poverty, etc...
I've just started, and I already need a Sabbatical...
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 Terence Love
Sent: Thursday, 27 March, 2014 12:21 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Wicked Problems
Hi Mike,
Thanks for your message.
Careful. . .
I suggested the examples I gave aligned with R&W's 10 *attributes* of 'wicked problems' . That's epistemologically completely different from suggesting the examples ARE wicked problems (which I didn't do).
The point I was making (attributes don't make a definition) I suspect aligns with the point you are making?
In any case, the presumption that attributes are a definition is one of the classic fallacies that indicate faulty reasoning.
Cheers,
Terry
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