Yes I quite like the idea in Heidegger of unconcealment, and of things and beings showing themselves, and perhaps good design thinking allows (creates the clearing?) something to show itself. As we think about it, and as we work on something or some artifact and wonder how it may be part of a process to achieve a better state of affairs, but are at the same time open to what that preferred state of affairs might be, we then allow the artifact to display its affordances, and show us what it can do for us, and what world (meaningful experience) it can open up for us.
WE can thus speak of a design theory, a design theorizing, a design theoria - theoria in the sense that Heidegger retrieved it - thea-horao, the goddess gazing at us (and showing herself to us) even as we gape at reality or at the gods. But really the gods have to save us, the gods have themselves to show, and our business is to let them. Economists and social scientists, who have their "methods" (perhaps typically positivist or "evidence based") insiist on gaping at reality on their terms (their own definitions of what constituites warrant, and the epistemic criteria for justification etc), but perhaps designers or design theorists (designer unhidders) are willing to move back and forth, in the way we look at a Monet , we must move far and near to find the distance that the picture can show its or else it's either too far or near and becomes a mess of colored dabs, (c.f. M Ponty, I found out, even though this idea I first read in JL Marion), so that what we are gaping at, our phenomenon, our design artifact can show, can give AS IT WISHES TO. There's almost a kind of correspondance with givenness (grace, cf Marion). The picture sets the terms of engagement; if you arrogantly insist to stand 5 cm from it to look at it, you will not be given the image (of water lilies).
Perhaps designing is this willingness to recalibrate, to move from one method to another, open to one discipline and then another, with many experiments of living and playing with the artifact, without willful certainty that we've grasped all that it can give.
So rather than Simon and Hediegger opposed, it seems both of them (even if there still remain differences between them) can be called theorists (unconealers) in opposition to Rene Descarte or Cartesian modes of thinkiing, that kind of willful spirit which determines the epistemic criteria for truth Remember, Descartes insisted on radical skepticism and the survival of such skepticism as a way of qualifying as truth, even though, as Gilson has often insisted that this was an unnatural way of knowing. Even in Gilson's thomistic epistemology there is a kind of calibration, a kind of openess to reality's own way of showing, which he labelled the natural way, which experience suggested was not by way of radical skepticism. So design thinking is a kind of theoria, but Cartesian modes of thinking, a kind of hidding, concealment. And obsession with one particular method (e.g. a scientific method) shared in this Cartesian concealment.
I may have read Descartes and evidence-based thinking uncharitably (real evidence based thinking will be more complex than my reductionist sketch) - I do apologize, but I have done so to better contrast and show the alternative.
Best
Jude
________________________________________
From: PhD-Design - This list is for discussion of PhD studies and related research in Design [[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Jerry Diethelm [[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Saturday, December 01, 2012 1:48 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Design maxims
Or perhaps a meritage of Simon and Heidegger that "design creates an open
space between existing and preferred where things show themselves and truth
is revealed."
Jerry
National Institute of Education (Singapore) http://www.nie.edu.sg
DISCLAIMER : The information contained in this email, including any attachments, may contain confidential information.
This email is intended only for the use of the addressee(s) listed above. Unauthorised sight, dissemination or any other
use of the information contained in this email is strictly prohibited. If you have received this email by fault, please
notify the sender and delete it immediately.
-----------------------------------------------------------------
PhD-Design mailing list <[log in to unmask]>
Discussion of PhD studies and related research in Design
Subscribe or Unsubscribe at https://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/phd-design
-----------------------------------------------------------------
|