Dear Luke,
Without wading into the entire argument of your post, I want to put forward a
proposition, a challenge, and a reminder.
(1) A proposition
The proposition is that many forms of research are in fact rich and naturalistic.
To give one example among many, the entire school of grounded theory that
goes back through symbolic interactionism to the traditions of hermeneutics
and Dilthey's human sciences is one. I could name many more. The work of
many scholars and scholar-designers on this list remains rich and lively while
also engaging scholarly and scientific traditions at the highest level. To name
just a few list members whose work I've read for one reason or another in the
past week, there are: Dori Tunstall, Dick Buchanan, Norm Sheehan, Kristina
Neidderer, Chris Rust, Keith Russell, Erik Stolterman, David Durling, Harold
Nelson ... the list goes on.
(2) A challenge
I'd have to challenge the notion that what you call "traditional scholarly
research" is violent, artificial, and dry. In my view, this claim suggests the
need for wider reading in the traditional literature. After a life spent in books
and journals, I'll agree that many ARE dry, some are artificial, and some even
do violence to the subject matter. The claim posted here is far to
universalizing to be meaningful. I don't have the room in a single post or the
time in an afternoon to offer counterexamples, but they exist, and they have
done since the days when Plato and Aristotle first wrote.
(3) A reminder
Design itself is artificial and deals with artifice, the sciences and politics of the
artificial anchored in the productive disciplines and arts of human making.
Yours,
Ken
On Fri, 19 Sep 2008 13:51:46 +1200, Luke Feast <[log in to unmask]>
wrote:
--snip--
The naturalistic undercurrents at play refer to the theory that design as
research, in its primitive vivacity, is able to escape from under the power,
violence and artifice of dry traditional scholarly research.
--snip--
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