Chuck suggested some concepts relating to intuition, imagination and insight are not theoretically defined and Ken responded with counts of items from search engines.
This points to an issue not yet well addressed on this list or in the design research literature - the epistemological quality of publications as they relate to theory.
Many research publications are ‘atheoretical’ in the sense that they are not grounded in, and tested and proved against predictive scientific forms of theory in which concepts are tightly defined. Instead ‘atheoretical’ discourse focuses on making a more limited kind of sense or representation of phenomena that is not so tightly justified in terms of scientific theory.
Many disciplines are predominately atheoretical in their discourse, although it is relatively rare that this perspective is widely discussed in them. Examples of predominately atheoretical disciplines and their literatures include Business and Management disciplines, the Social Sciences, much of Economics, Political Theory, Law, Psychology and Neuroscience, and almost all of the Design research literature. There are exceptions such as the role of Operations Research in Business and Management and the development of scientific theories about Design such as those developed in AI (although many remain intrinsically atheoretical).
Limitations of atheoretical discussions include reduced  ability to analyse new theories and concepts  in a scientific manner, lack  or inaccuracy of prediction, poor justification of relationships between causes and effects, lack of agreement across the research and professional communities, faulty reasoning leading to incorrect assumptions and overarching lack of clarity, prediction and usefulness. 
The literatures and conceptual definitions and discussions relating to ‘intuition’, ‘imagination’, ‘insight’ and ‘design’ are typically atheoretical. The lack of agreement and lack of clear delineating definitions to date of each is a strong indicator they are atheoretical. Chuck seemed to be attempting a less atheoretical  approach to representing the relationships between these concepts.
My reading of Chuck’s analyses and publications over the last decade is Chuck is attempting to move the bar towards developing (scientific) theory-based concepts  and improve theory by moving it away from atheoretical foundations  . On one hand, this requires defining concepts and relations in a non-atheoretical manner. On the other hand, it requires being aware of the extent and limitations of atheoretical literatures and the atheoretical discourses within them. This seems to be the succinctly put essence of Chuck’s opening sentence in the paper he posted.
Others, including Don Norman, Tim Smithers, Phil Agre, Vladimir Hubka, Ernst Eder, Buckminster Fuller, Herbert Simon and John Gero appear to be following a similar path away from the atheoretical discourses and concepts  and towards sounder theoretical footings for design research.
Ken, in his comments on Chucks paper pointed to the large numbers of publications resulting from  searches of keywords in areas and disciplines that are substantially atheoretical. Ken did this without reference to whether the disciplines, publications, concepts, analyses and discourses were atheoretical or not. Instead, Ken seemed to be assuming that any and all publications in an area were of relevance.
This seems to be at the heart of the situation. An awareness of the problems of using atheoretical publications as the basis for scientific theory  means there is little or no need to prove each atheoretical publication irrelevant. Instead, the requirement is only to point to the issue, which Chuck has done. Ken, whose research and writing is typically in disciplines in which atheoretical discourse is dominant, has responded to Chuck apparently assuming Chuck’s intentions were also atheoretical. 
Best wishes,
Terry


-----------------------------------------------------------------
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
-----------------------------------------------------------------