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Dear Ben, Thank you for your perceptive questions. Started to write a brief answer, but even a brief answer suddenly turns long in addressing these kinds of issues. I will satisfy myself with a very short answer to a central question. If you wish to read further, I add below the formerly short note that turned into several pages. Two major questions in your post involved my earlier note. The first involves hermeneutics. The second involves multiple methods and epistemological relativism. On hermeneutics, I attempted to distinguish between two traditions of hermeneutical research. The first tradition goes back to the translation schools of Athens and Alexandria, coming forward through the medieval universities and blossoming in the work of Johann Martin Chladenius. Wilhelm Dilthey brought this tradition forward into the human sciences, and his views shaped a tradition in which we can place such scholars as George Herbert Mead and Herbert Blumer. Nothing in this tradition implies epistemological relativism. As my long note will demonstrate, this tradition implies an empirical world. The purpose of hermeneutical research is to understand this world more fully, including the many views that different human beings have of their world. To say that different people see the world in different ways is a statement of objective reality. It does not mean that the world is constituted differently simply because different individuals have different positions and perspectives from which to see the world. The second tradition of hermeneutics in anchored in Heidegger's work. I declined to address Heidegger's work because of the deep layers of dialectical inquiry this requires and the confusions that are often involved. The second question is whether multiple research methods imply epistemological relativism. The short answer is no, they do not. I explain in my longer note why an interdisciplinary field requires multiple methods for revealing different issues, aspects, and problems connected with the world. This is not the same as saying that multiple methods mean the world itself is different from each position. I will offer a mild nuance to a question you only partially asked. You asked about "multi-methodologies." In my view, such terms as "multi-methodologies" or "multiple methodologies" are problematic. Methodology is a field of inquiry or a discipline. Methodology is the comparative study of method. There are many research methods. There are many perspectives on research method, and these constitute methodological positions. Methodology itself is a field comprised of many segments, sectors, and aspects. Any one researcher may be aware of different methodological positions. Some researchers may adopt several positions for different purposes. Even so, I would not use a term such as "multi-methodologies" to describe the concept of using multiple methods. Long note follows. If it is too long, please feel free to discard it or to scroll on by. Best regards, Ken Friedman -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- Warning! Long Commentary -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- This text is copyright ( C ) 2002 by Ken Friedman. Permission is given to use or reproduce this text in part or in full with proper citation and copyright credit. -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- Warning! Long Commentary -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- Dear Ben and All, This query involves a range of so many deep issues that I will not try to answer them all. I will simply clarify my position. In answering Kevin Connaire's question, I attempted to distinguish between the several forms of hermeneutics. None of the hermeneutical traditions that I described implies a position of epistemological relativism. Please recall that I specifically declined to discuss Heidegger's views or the forms of hermeneutics arising from Heidegger's work. The forms of philosophical hermeneutics involving epistemological relativism follow from that tradition. In contrast, the other hermeneutic traditions posit an empirical world distinct from the researcher. The role of hermeneutics for scholars from Chladenius to Dilthey is that of finding ways to develop increasingly better understandings of difficult material. Hermeneutics attempts to hear the voices of human beings. These voices are different, and the perspectives and worldviews of each subject are his or her own. This does not imply that there is no empirical reality outside the voice of the subject. It simply means that a researcher ought to attempt to locate and hear the voice of the subject as he or she speaks from within his or her perspective. It never seemed to me that Dilthey's view of the human sciences implies epistemological relativism. Rather, it suggests that the methods of research into natural science are often inappropriate to the human sciences. This is a point that Allen Lee makes in the article you cite, Your citation only gave half of Lee's full title, "Rigor and Relevance in MIS Research: Beyond the Approach of Positivism Alone." The issue of positivism is important here: "In the social sciences, positivism refers to the belief that social-science research should emulate how research is done in the natural sciences. Interestingly, Davenport and Markus happen to assert that IS research ought to emulate research in medicine and law. A point that Davenport and Markus do not state explicitly, but that would further strengthen their position, is that medicine and law are not natural sciences, but professions. Inquiry in the professions, such as medicine, law, engineering, and architecture, does not quite proceed in the same manner, if it does at all, as inquiry in the natural sciences. Inquiry in the natural sciences pursues the goal of truth in formal propositions; inquiry in the professions pursues the goal of effectiveness in actions. Inquiry in the natural sciences produces knowledge about what the world is; inquiry in the professions produces knowledge about how to intervene in the world and change it in order to satisfy real-world needs. Clearly, if we wish our research to be relevant to practitioners, then we ought to consider doing our research in a way that emulates inquiry in the professions, whether in addition to or instead of doing research in a way that emulates inquiry in the natural sciences" (Lee 1999: 29). Lee goes on to discuss a wide range of issues that also apply to design research. I want to keep my response brief, so I will step around them today. There are many purposes for research. Some involve knowing how to do things. Others involve knowing that things are so. Some, as David Sless noted the other day, involve description and pragmatic action. Others, as Rosan Chow noted in her query to David, involve explanation. My view is that design research involves all of these. All of these are legitimate. Moe important, the search for pragmatic results does not negate the need for deeper understanding. Quite the contrary, the pragmatic results that immediate situations often seem to require create a situation in which deeper forms of understanding finally become more necessary than they were before imposing immediately pragmatic solutions on the problems they seem to answer. Pragmatic, short-term solutions are often ad hoc. They tend to be local. Because they solve partial problems in local context, they frequently fail to engage the large-scale systemic understanding. On many occasions, this is irrelevant. However, purely local solutions also fail to consider network effective and contingent complexity. In any system comprised of many inter-related parts, the failure to consider these kinds of effects generally leads to new problems. Consider a local decision to save valuable resources by designating year-dates with two digits in costly computer programs. This decision was sensible at a time when computer resources were scarce and costly. They led to the year 2000 problem. Decisions that are effective in solving immediate problems on a local basis - including a local basis repeated within systems -- have astonishing consequences in the large-scale systems they affect. One of the great virtues of the internal combustion engine was that it solved a major urban pollution problem of the early 1900s: horse manure. Today, the internal combustion engine has become the greatest urban pollution problem of the early 2000s, and its effects are far more than urban. Every aspect of the designed world is linked to nearly every other in today's large-scale networked environments. In a world of seven billion people, any problem that is solved locally with a widely adopted solution affects tens or hundreds of millions. In some cases, solutions affect everyone in the world. In this environment, we need understanding of deep systems and explanatory causes as well as pragmatic, applicable solutions. No field grows in the long term without a foundation in expatiations. The search for explanation gives birth to new theories and questions that lead to improved practice. Every field of research requires scholars and scientists doing several kinds of research - pragmatic and deep, descriptive and explanatory, clinical, applied, and basic. Design research involves all these forms of research and many methods. One way to look at design is a process that seeks outcomes. Many of the ideas with which I work in defining design go back to Buckminster Fuller (1969, 1981) and Herbert Simon's (1982, 1998) definitions of design science. It is possible defines design in terms of goals as Simon does without subscribing to all of his views. To design, he writes, is to "[devise] courses of action aimed at changing existing situations into preferred ones" (Simon 1982: 129). Design, properly defined, is the entire process across the full range of domains required for any given outcome. The nature of design as an integrative discipline places it at the intersection of several large fields [A text version describing this model appears at end of this note]. In one dimension, design is a field of thinking and pure research. In another, it is a field of practice and applied research. When applications are used to solve specific problems in a specific setting, it is a field of clinical research. My model for the field of design (Friedman 2001) is a circle of six fields. A horizon bisects the circle into fields of theoretical study and fields of practice and application. The triangles represent six general domains of design. Moving clockwise from the left-most triangle, these domains are (1) natural sciences, (2) humanities and liberal arts, (3) social and behavioral sciences, (4) human professions and services, (5) creative and applied arts, and (6) technology and engineering. Design may involve any or all of these domains, in differing aspect and proportion depending on the nature of the project at hand or the problem to be solved. Design knowledge and design process involve many kinds of knowledge and many kinds of process. This does not imply epistemological relativism. This is a situation emerges from the interdisciplinary nature of design. Design involves many forms of inquiry. It is so because design addresses many different kinds of problem. Design involves many different kinds of process with actions leading to many different kinds of goals. To return to the issue of epistemological relativism, I would like to quote Herbert Blumer on multiple methods and their relation to the empirical world: Blumer discusses this nicely in the chapter on methodology in his book on symbolic interactionism. Blumer argues for multiple methodological perspectives. His argument for qualitative research is precisely that numbers cannot capture or adequately represent certain kinds of human realities. This does not imply epistemological relativism, but it addresses the difficulties of learning about a real world beyond our subjective perceptions of that world. Blumer (1969: 21-22) writes, ". . . an empirical science presupposes the existence of an empirical world. Such an empirical world exists as something available for observations, study, and analysis. It stands over against the scientific observer, with a character that has to be dug out and established through observation, study, and analysis. This empirical world must forever be the central point of concern. It is the point of departure and the point of return in the case of empirical science. It is the testing ground for any assertions made about the empirical world. 'Reality' for empirical science exists only in the empirical world, can be sought only there, and can be verified only there." My position on these issues is that 1) There is a real world external to any individual human being. 2) This world is in theory knowable. 3) The practical difficulty of gaining knowledge does not negate the possibility of knowledge. There are many methods used in many fields. All methods have some relation to epistemology, but the wide variety of methods and the decision to use different methods does not imply epistemological differences. For example, using multiple methods to triangulate implies the exact opposite position to that of epistemological relativism. One can take on a position involving multiple methods and one can even account for differences in position and perspective without being an epistemological relativist. One does not need to adopt a positivist approach in either the narrow or the broad sense to accept the ideas of an empirical reality that does not depend on subjective position. Our PERSPECTIVE on reality necessarily depends on our position, but reality itself does not. Neither does one need to use the methods of natural science to accept the notion that there is an empirical world external to the researcher. In my view, the interdisciplinary nature of design and the complexity of design research make to necessary for us to use many methods for the different kinds of problems we face. This is precisely why I argue for sound methodological training. This is why I argue that any serious PhD program must provide training in both methods and methodology - the comparative study of method. Any serious research degree program must equip researchers with knowledge of and about research methods that they may not themselves use or apply. I know ABOUT many methods that I do not use. I know roughly how they work. I know what kinds of problems they address. I know when it is helpful to suggest that a student or colleague consider them. As a research advisor, I am required to know about multiple methods. When students or colleagues come to me with problems that require methods outside my range of expertise, I can send them to the right place for the help and resources they need. This involves the argument against labeling as research degrees those degree programs where students learn a single specific research method linked to practical application. A lawyer learns to do clinical legal research. A physician learns to use and apply diagnostics. Neither of these may be equipped to teach research. In contrast, a PhD implies that the degree holder can teach BOTH methods and methodology. The problems we are now seeing in many design research programs emerge specifically from the fact that many teachers in our field are unequipped to teach BOTH methods and methodology. Even worse, we are now seeing the graduates of deficient doctoral courses guiding a new generation of master's and doctoral candidates. Their students often do not know that there are different methods for different purposes. They mistake the one method their teacher can give them for "research methods." This does not mean that any one scholar requires a specific method. The FIELD, however, requires many methods, and the disciplines within the field, require many methods and sometimes multiple methods. On a more specific level, there are several answers to your question on multiple methods: 1) Design and design research involve many problems that are explicit cognates of the problems seen in other fields. Methods used in other fields can often be adopted directly to design research for addressing the same kinds of issues used elsewhere. 2) Design and design research involve many problems that resemble the problems seen in other fields. Methods used in other fields can often be adapted successfully to addressing issues that are similar to those seen elsewhere. This kind of methodological adaptation is common in fields from mathematics and sociology to literature and medicine. 3) Design research involves problems specific to design that nevertheless resemble problems in other fields in structural and substance. Research methods can be adapted from any field to solve structurally and substantively similar problems in other fields. There is also a rich tradition of importing method across the boundaries of fields when they can be applied to problems with similar structure and content. A problem in public health and epidemiology may have the same structure and roughly similar content to related but distinct problems in mathematics, sociology, law, economics, history, economy, or logistics. 4) Design research involves problems with partial structural or substantive resemblances to problems in other fields. Aspects or elements of methods may be adapted from any field to solve structurally and substantively similar problems in other fields. To see how this can work in practice, consider how Andrew Wiles solved Fermat's Theorem by using methods from different areas of theoretical and applied mathematics to solve specific aspects of the long series of problems that he unraveled in solving the general problem. Those who are not mathematicians will nevertheless find the story (Aczel 1996; Singh 1997) interesting - and anyone interesting in heuristics and methodology will find this a very useful example. 5) Any field or discipline rich enough to support research methods as contrasted with methods of practice will probably develop multiple research methods. This must be so because human beings will focus on different aspects of any research problem. Any given research method will illuminate certain aspects of a problem while obscuring others. Therefore, different researchers will eventually locate, create, or find more than one method to enable their research. (The empirical world has many aspects. that any method reveals one of these or another does not imply that each method reveals a different world. Neither does it bear on the possibility or difficulty of seeing these different aspects of the world in a unified structure on another level of inquiry.) 6) Any field or discipline rich enough to support heuristic inquiry will probably support different research methods for different possible problems. A method may be large and systemic, or it may be tightly focused and local. Each problem may require a specific range of methods or a specific method or a chosen selection of methods. Even a relatively specific problem in a specific discipline may require multiple methods for solution. George Polya's (1990) classic text on heuristics in mathematical problem solving many good example of this. 7) Any field that offers problems challenging enough to require research will challenge researchers to devise methods suited to the problems they face. As the field accumulates a body of methods, researchers will bring different methods to apply on the problems they address. Hadamard's (1996) inquiry into the psychology of mathematical invention illuminates the process at work as scientists create methods. Several more such cases can be described in which the objective situation of design research requires multiple methods and different methodological perspectives. None of these implies epistemological relativism. There are many extant varieties of epistemological relativism. I subscribe to none of them. Norris (1997) offers an elegant and well-conceived summary of all the major varieties of epistemological relativism. Even though he opposes them, his summaries are so fair and well described that this book is also a good introduction to the different schools of epistemological relativism. His chapter rrfer3ecne lists also allow the interested reader to go further. Norris (1997: 66-100) offers a good discussion of ontological relativity and meaning variance, and (Norris 1997: 133-166) a good overview of Heidegger's version of hermeneutics. Stephen Toulmin's (2001) new book offers a nicely argued view of the tradition of inquiry that can be used for such fields as design. I have only just started reading it. It is premature for me to summarize Toulmin's views. I recommend it for those who want to read what a distinguished philosopher of science has to say about philosophies of science and scientific method suited to inquiry for the professions. This is the question of reasoned inquiry for situated practice. What I believe is that reasoned argument from evidence offers a good basis for design research. This implies a healthy pragmatism AND a search for explanation. Because explanation gives rise to more effective solutions, it implies a search or increasingly deep explanations as the basis of better pragmatic solutions. It suggests multiple methods rooted in respect for empirical data. It allows absolute freedom of inquiry and complete imagination in proposing hypotheses, and it requires testing each hypothesis against facts. Design research has an aspect that we can not address through method alone. Even if those who believe that 1) there is a real world, and that 2) this world is in theory knowable, accept that it is often difficult top know the world or even any aspect of the world. While 3) the practical difficulty of gaining knowledge does not negate the possibility of knowledge, developing knowledge requires a long and difficult journey from ignorance to understanding. Design is both a field for disciplined inquiry and a field of applied action. We do not simply know things. Those who want robust theories insist on knowing things in a theoretical, lawful, or explanatory sense, but we are aware of the pragmatic power of design. This gives urgency to theoretical inquiry, because 4) what we know affects how we act. This also gives an ethical urgency to our research, because 5) what we do affects human beings. Like medical research or legal research, design research affects design action. As physicians and lawyers do, it is also the case for designers that 6) our actions in have ethical implications. In such fields as design, therefore, the journey from ignorance to understanding also implies developing the wisdom for right action. This makes our inquiry into methods and mehtolodigcal perspectives far moe important than they have seemed in the past. I welcome the kinds of thoughtful inquiry you opened with your questions, and I hope others will also reflect on these issues. Best regards, Ken Friedman References Aczel, Amir D. 1996. Fermat's Last Theorem. Unlocking the Secret of an Ancient Mathematical Problem. London: Penguin Books. Lee, Allen S. 1999. "Rigor and Relevance in MIS Research: Beyond the Approach of Positivism Alone." MIS Quarterly, Vol. 23, No. 1, 29-35. Friedman, Ken. 2001. "Creating Design Knowledge: From Research into Practice." In Design and Technology Educational Research and Development: The Emerging International Research Agenda. E. W. L. Norman and P. H. Roberts, eds. Loughborough, UK: Department of Design and Technology, Loughborough University, 31-69. Fuller, Buckminster. 1969. Utopia or oblivion: the prospects for humanity. New York: Bantam Books. Fuller, Buckminster. 1981. Critical Path. New York: St. Martin's Press. Hadamard, Jacques. 1996. The Mathematician's Mind. The Psychology of Invention in the Mathematical Field. With a new preface by P. N. Johnson-Laird. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press. Norris, Christopher. 1997. Against Relativism. Philosophy of Science, Deconstruction, and Critical Theory. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers. Polya, G. 1990. How to Solve It. A New Aspect of Mathematical Method. London: Penguin Books. Simon, Herbert. 1982. The sciences of the artificial., 2nd ed. Cambridge, Massachusetts : MIT Press. Simon, Herbert. 1996. The sciences of the artificial., 3rd ed. Cambridge, Massachusetts : MIT Press. Singh, Simon. 1996. Fermat's Last Theorem. The Story of a Riddle that Confounded the World's Greatest Minds for 358 Years. London: Fourth Estate. Toulmin, Stephen. 2001. Return to Reason. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press. [Text description of model] The model I propose to represent the field of design can be envisioned as a circle of domains. Since a model can't be posted by email, I will describe this model in geometric terms. It should be easy to reproduce it with a quick sketch. Draw a circle or pie chart. Bisect the circle with a horizontal line. Draw six equal triangles on the circle so that three triangle above the horizontal line and three below. Use a dotted line to extend the horizontal bisecting line to the right and left of the circles. Above the dotted line, inscribe a caption to denote that the three triangles above the horizontal line represent "domains of theoretical study." Below the dotted line, inscribe a caption to denote that the three triangles below the horizontal line represent "domains of practice and application." The triangles represent six general domains of design. Moving clockwise from the left-most triangle above the horizontal line, these domain are (1) natural sciences, (2) humanities and liberal arts, (3) social and behavioral sciences, [shifting below the line] (4) human professions and services, (5) creative and applied arts, and (6) technology and engineering. The model described in this text is copyright © 1999 by Ken Friedman. All rights reserved. Permission to use and reproduce freely is granted on condition of proper citation and reference. [Ben's post] Importance: Normal Date: Mon, 8 Apr 2002 13:11:07 +1000 Reply-To: Ben Matthews <[log in to unmask]> From: PhD-Design - This list is for discussion of PhDs in Design <[log in to unmask]> Subject: Does Multi-methodology = epistemological relativism? To: [log in to unmask] There is a growing amount of research in design that is adopting methods from other disciplines to the study of phenomena for which those methods were not originally designed. While this is not a problem per se, it raises for me a number of questions. (I am a newer member of the list, so if this has been discussed at length in previous posts, please ignore me, but please point me to the information). In good research, doesn't there need to be an important distinction between epistemology and method? Does the adoption of a method presuppose the adoption of the epistemology underpinning that method? For example, Ken recently posted an informative background to philosophical hermeneutics. My research could certainly benefit from giving a voice to the subjects of my studies (philosophical hermeneutics being a means through which to do that), but my understanding (albeit limited) of philosophical hermeneutics is that it is founded on an ontological view that I am not yet comfortable with, namely that reality is multiple and shifting. If the appropriation of a method can be separated from the adoption of its epistemology, do we then require some genuine (and perhaps original) philosophical effort to ground the adopted method as a means of contributing to a "different kind" of knowledge? On the other hand, if there is no separation between a method and its view of knowledge, what of multi-methodologies? Where multiple methods are used, and this is particularly true of the social sciences, is it important that they stem from the same or similar philosophical traditions? Or is a kind of epistemological relativism acceptable as long as the author makes clear he/she is aware of the situation? I ask because it seems to me to be increasingly important to make clear exactly how we are contributing to knowledge in the midst of a growing number of epistemic perspectives and methods being applied to research in design. Having said this, some of the most interesting, most informative and most applicable to practice (in my opinion) research in design appears to be (blissfully) epistemologically unaware, or silent at the least. However, even if the goal of inquiry in design is to develop effective actions in real world situations (Lee 1999), rather than pursuing truth about the world in formal statements (as it is in the physical sciences), surely there is still place for a Deweyan, pragmatic epistemology (or something similar) that privileges action and "knowing-how", rather than "knowing-that". I remember reading somewhere (I think it was Nigel Cross or Terry Love, and since Terry's on this list, hopefully he'll tell me if it wasn't him) that design was in a "pre-theoretical stage", which I believe was said in order to account for the multiplicity of directions design research was taking at the time (if anyone knows the citation, please send it to me). Perhaps there is still a place for the use of multiple methods, irrespective of epistemology, in studies that are primarily concerned with exploring a question, rather than finding an answer to one. I would greatly appreciate any comments in reply. Cheers, Ben -- Ken Friedman, Ph.D. Associate Professor of Leadership and Strategic Design Department of Leadership and Organization Norwegian School of Management Visiting Professor Advanced Research Institute School of Art and Design Staffordshire University