Dear Gunnar,
I agree with the position that diversity is important. Furthermore, I think
that diversity has pragmatic value. (This also links to the thread on
triangulation).
When we are confronted with the question “what is the 'best' source of our
design knowledge? Professional practice? Research? Art? Engineering?
Philosophy? etc. etc.”, I think Popper’s reframing of the question is
insightful. Popper claims that rather than “which one is best?” we should
figure out “how can we detect and correct errors?”. I think that diversity
supports the form of critical inquiry that Popper advocates because it
brings more perspectives to bear on what is at stake.
Popper (1960, section XV, papa. 1-5) describes this link between politics
and science quite nicely in the following passage from his lecture ‘On The
Sources Of Knowledge And Ignorance’:
-snip-
The traditional systems of epistemology may be said to result from yes
answers or no-answers to questions about the sources of our knowledge.
They never challenge these questions, or dispute their legitimacy; the
questions are taken as perfectly natural, and nobody seems to see any harm
in them.
This is quite interesting, for these questions are clearly authoritarian in
spirit. They can be compared with that traditional question of political
theory, ‘Who should rule?’, which begs for an authoritarian answer such as
‘the best’, or ‘the wisest’, or ‘the people’, or ‘the majority’. (It
suggests, incidentally, such silly alternatives as ‘Who should be our
rulers: the capitalists or the workers?’, analogous to ‘What is the
ultimate source of knowledge: the intellect or the senses?’) This political
question is wrongly put and the answers which it elicits are paradoxical
(as I have tried to show in chapter 7 of my Open Society).
It should be replaced by a completely different question such as ‘How can
we organize our political institutions so that bad or incompetent rulers
(whom we should try not to get, but whom we so easily might get all the
same) cannot do too much damage?’ I believe that only by changing our
question in this way can we hope to proceed towards a reasonable theory of
political institutions.
The question about the sources of our knowledge can be replaced in a
similar way. It has always been asked in the spirit of: ‘What are the best
sources of our knowledge-the most reliable ones, those which will not lead
us into error, and those to which we can and must turn, in case of doubt,
as the last court of appeal?’
I propose to assume, instead, that no such ideal sources exist-no more than
ideal rulers-and that all ‘sources’ are liable to lead us into error at
times. And I propose to replace, therefore, the question of the sources of
our knowledge by the entirely different question: ‘How can we hope to
detect and eliminate error?’
-snip-
Best regards,
Luke
Full text of Popper’s lecture is available here.
Doolittle, C. (2010, August 13). On The Sources Of Knowledge And Ignorance
[Web log post]. Retrieved from
http://www.propertarianism.com/other-authors-works/on-the-sources-of-knowledge-and-of-ignorance/#.UpfY8WTUs9E
Gunnar wrote
-snip-
I know better than to try to put words in GK's mouth or Ken's so I'm not
commenting on the particular exchange. What I am doing is asking whether I
am imagining an undercurrent in many such conversations where categories
(Design 1, 2, 3, & 4, for one instance and art & engineering for another)
do not just form distinctions but a hierarchy where it is implicitly clear
that anyone doing 1 is wasting her life by not moving quickly toward
practicing 4 or inventing 5.
If we conclude that product design logic does not equal organizational
change logic, I hope we can avoid the unexamined assumption that one or the
other is unworthy. I hope we could consider whether each has something to
teach the other without the assumption that either should aspire to be the
other. Once we say that they are not the same, I think it would be unwise
to pretend that those who are good fits for one activity should be assumed
to be equally so for the other.
-snip-
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