Tim Smithers said:
>seems to me to fall into the trap that Terry
>identifies for the case of "design". To suggest
>that scientific knowledge, or any kind of knowledge,
>as an aim is to invest it with a kind of property,
>and, it seems to me, a kind of agency.
>
>Knowledge (of any kind) has no aim or aims, nor does
>it have any specific purpose, though it can be
>used in relation with specific aims or purposes by
>those who poses the knowledge.
I feel that there are two quite different cases here. Terry raises the spectre
of a something which we call "Design" that we may believe to exist but may not
really understand at all other than through more specific concepts such as
"designing", or "a design for..." (I rather like this idea, it could lead us
to abandon the concept of Design Research, Design Education or a Design
Profession and force us to get real jobs)
Knowledge on the other hand does have some recognisable forms. More
importantly, Tim may be right about knowledge in the most general sense of the
term, but the knowledge which might arise in or from research has, or should
have, consequences (thank you Michael Biggs, I hope I haven't corrupted your
use of "consequence" too much).
In the context of designing, I believe strongly that one of the key issues for
a designer is the knowledge that informs their designing and we have found that
encouraging students to investigate wider areas of knowledge has allowed them
to develop more specifically useful design ideas. Thus the consequences and
"agency" of the knowledge may not be explicit until the designer has digested
it but they were there all along in the sense of knowledge having potential to
be an agent of change.
Best wishes from Sheffield
Chris Rust
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