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----- Original Message ----- From: [log in to unmask] To: [log in to unmask] Sent: Tuesday, October 24, 2000 8:43 PM Subject: Rejected [non-member submission] Tr: design knowledge & phd ----- Original Message ----- From: alain findeli To: [log in to unmask] Sent: Saturday, October 14, 2000 10:32 PM Subject: design knowledge & phd Hi all, The following are two earlier postings which, for technical reasons, never came through on the list. The first one is a comment on Dick's reply to Ellen (Aug. 31) originally sent Sept. 15, the second one a reply to one of Rosan's notes sent Oct. 4. I thought that, in spite of the delay, they would contribute to our discussions. Alain Findeli School of Industrial Design University of Montreal ______________________________________________________________________________________ Dear Dick, I certainly agree with your conviction that the paleoteric division between theory and practice should be replaced by a neoteric model, and I also find your Aristotelian distinction between practice and production helpful in design thinking. But aren't you contradicting yourself at the beginning of your note by apparently acknowledging and promoting the existence of two very distinct master's degrees (one in design practice and one in design studies)? The same contradiction appears in the wish to create and distinguish a PhD in Design from a DDes. It seems to me that as long as these distinctions exist, we will keep muddling around in paleoteric patterns. I believe our current Western, i.e. dualistic, agnostic, materialistic, thinking patterns are not "creative" enough to figure out, indeed to design, what I and others consider to be one of the key issue in this matter: the exact nature and quality of the relationship between thinking and acting (of which making can be considered a subset), between pure and practical reason, between science and ethics, etc. In more concrete terms, the question is: what is the exact relationship that you wish to establish, on one hand, and that the students actually establish, on the other, between the two parts of your master's program at Carnegie (the studio project and the written dissertation)? Does it really lead to a metamorphosis of the practice and of the theory of design, to the education of enlightened practitioners? I mean "metamorphosis", not "contribution to". Best, Alain ----- Original Message ----- From: Richard Buchanan <[log in to unmask]> To: <[log in to unmask]> Cc: <[log in to unmask]> Sent: Thursday, August 31, 2000 1:01 AM Subject: Re: Theory and originality > Dear Ellen, > > I've read your note several times, but I'm still puzzled by your > comments and concerns. Could you try restating your ideas again? My > fault, I am sure. > > As I think about what you have said, I believe there are several issues > mixed too tightly together. Perhaps it would be useful to separate them > out a bit. > > For example, I wonder if your note has conflated master's programs in > design with master's programs in design studies. Master's programs in > design are, to me, programs of professional practice. And the master's > degree seems to me to be appropriately the terminal degree of > professional practice. > > However, I see such programs in professional practice to be seriously > deficient if they fail to develop a student's ability to discuss design > in a broader context of history, theory, and criticism--or, indeed, > philosophy. That is why our master's programs at Carnegie Mellon > require a thesis that has two parts: one is a studio project (and > preferrably one that pushes the limits of contemporary design work > rather than something pedestrian), the other is a written thesis on a > theme of design studies. We have no trouble with the combination, and > our students seem to flourish in both areas. We want our students to be > excellent in design practice and excellent in further exploring the > nature of design in one of the areas of design studies. > > But there is also room, I believe, for master's programs in design > studies, per se. We do not offer such a degree at Carnegie Mellon, but > some schools do. For example, there are degrees in design history. > Over time, I suspect that we will see many more. > > In this regard, I was deeply troubled that the meeting at La Clusaz did > not include extended discussion of the nature of master's and doctorates > in design history or of the possibilities and significance of design > criticism, or even design theory. Perhaps you recall my comments at the > time on this matter. And my own presentation focused specifically on a > philosophic issue in design--specifically and quite purposefully not a > discussion of doctoral education or of design practice. I felt it was > time to get on with the work of inquiry and begin discussing substantive > problems that are appropriate for doctoral level understanding. > > Your note also includes some discussion of doctoral education in design. > Once again, I wonder if several issues are being conflated. I do not > see the doctorate as a single, one-size-fits-all, degree. There are > many reasonable kinds of inquiry, and each institution may find one or > another suited to its strengths and interests--and to its vision of what > will count most in the future of our field! > > > Perhaps as a general comment on your note--and you will have to tell me > if I have totally missed the point--I find the central issue to be > uncertainty over the relationship of theory and practice. Personally, I > would include "production" or "making" as a third element, because the > problems of design practice and the problems of "making" are not > identical--though many people seem to think they are identical. > > The relationship of theory, practice, and production is and remains > profoundly puzzling at this point for our community, it seems. Perhaps > this is because of the novelty of the combination. > > In any case, I believe that the great danger of doctoral education in > design is that we will form our programs on the models of other fields, > where theory and practice are sharply divided--and where there is no > recognition of the problems of production or making. I call this > approach "paleoteric"--the old learning. In contrast, the "neoteric" > institutions and programs will find a much more interesting interplay of > theory, practice and production. We need to get past the old division > and separation of theory and practice. It belongs to another time. > > I hope these comments have some relation to your concerns. Let's keep > trying. I have a hunch that you and I agree on many points and that > further conversation may clarify things for me. > > Regards, > > Dick > > > Richard Buchanan, Ph.D. > Professor and Head > School of Design > Carnegie Mellon University > __________________________________________________________ Hi Rosan and all, Rosan, I would like to thank and congratulate you for the set of questions you are asking and seem to be struggling with. The example you mention is, for me, a perfect proof that you hit and understood a central issue of our discussions. Very, very briefly, here is how I am usually dealing with these complex matters. I also started with a comparative study of the scientific way of knowing (at least what is claimed as such by scientists and epistemologists), on one hand, and what you call "design knowledge" (to which I prefer what Nigel Cross calls "the designerly way of knowing"), on the other. The former beholds the world as an object, the latter as a project. This is, in my view, what gives design knowledge, and for that matter all knowledge-for-action, its specificity. It does not mean, however, that such type of knowledge has never been investigated by philosophers in the past. Dick Buchanan, in one of his his replies, gave us many examples which should help us downplay our sometimes noisy claims for the uniqueness of design knowledge. After some years, I came to the conclusion and conviction that this specificity might be better understood within the theoretical framework of ethics rather than epistemology. Anyway, it is precisely this specificity which should, still in my view, constitute the central endeavour of Ph.Ds in design. Another conviction of mine is that it is advisable or possible to characterize this specificity only through practice, i.e. within the framework of a design PROJECT, since we are dealing with situated theory (in the Sartrian, existentialist-phenomenological sense). In scientific terms, the design project should be considered as our "laboratory", our "field of experiment", our "terrain". I won't go into the methodological consequences of this proposition now (see, for example, my contributions to the Ohio and Helsinki conferences). As mentioned, the explicit presence of that intentional component in design has many consequences for design research (scientists, except phenomenologists, believe they must and can get rid of this intentionality). One of them is the following : since in every design act we witness an interaction between the outer world and an inner world, every research project in design should somehow include both worlds in its inquiry (again, there is a lot to say about this "somehow"). The inquiry into the inner world is usually carried out with the tools of psychology, with a strong preference -currently- for cognitivist models (and their corresponding bias). But, as is illustrated with great insight by your own example, cognitivism alone does not exhaust all the intricacies of one's inner world when designing : one of your central concern in the condom situation is one of responsibility. I maintain that the picture -i.e. the "theory"-of the world we come up with when we feel responsible for it is different from the "scientific" one. Which is best, i.e. more relevant, true, adequate, beautiful, human, etc? These are very difficult epistemological questions indeed. So, please, keep asking those questions, stay on this track, keep confident: I trust your research will contribute to what we're all after in this community. Alain Findeli Full Professor School of Industrial Design University of Montreal