Abstract
I suspect that the growing ‘body’ of design theory may be infected by more inconsistency than is justifiable by genuine disagreement among design researchers. Taking my clue from Peirce, who argued that theory inevitably rests on basic metaphysical assumptions that theorists ought to be critically aware of, I demonstrate how ‘insidious inconsistency’ may infect design theory if we ignore this admonition. As a possible remedy, I propose a method by which the philosophy of design may develop sound metaphysical foundations (‘worldviews’) for design theory – and obtain philosophical insights into design as a valuable side effect.
Keywords
Design theory and research, philosophy of design, metatheory.
Citation
Galle, P. (2006) Worldviews for Design Theory, in Friedman, K., Love, T., Côrte-Real, E. and Rust, C. (eds.), Wonderground - DRS International Conference 2006, 1-4 November, Lisbon, Portugal. https://dl.designresearchsociety.org/drs-conference-papers/drs2006/researchpapers/43
Worldviews for Design Theory
I suspect that the growing ‘body’ of design theory may be infected by more inconsistency than is justifiable by genuine disagreement among design researchers. Taking my clue from Peirce, who argued that theory inevitably rests on basic metaphysical assumptions that theorists ought to be critically aware of, I demonstrate how ‘insidious inconsistency’ may infect design theory if we ignore this admonition. As a possible remedy, I propose a method by which the philosophy of design may develop sound metaphysical foundations (‘worldviews’) for design theory – and obtain philosophical insights into design as a valuable side effect.