Science depends on interpretation, community and tradition
"The beacons of the philosophy of science include Karl Popper, Thomas Kuhn, Paul Feyerabend, and Bruno Latour who refute scientism from various angles: arguing that scientific observations are theory and value laden, science takes place within communities, science can be anarchic, etc, all suggesting that science is as dependent on processes of interpretation, community, and tradition as any aspect of the humanities."
(Richard Coyne, 2011)
Excerpted from a letter to the editor, first published in ARQ: Richard Coyne (2011). What’s science got to do with it?. Architectural Research Quarterly, 15 , pp 205-206, doi:10.1017/S135913551100073X
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Simon PerkinsSHARE
Connectivism: Socialising Open Learning
Fig.1 George Siemens 2009 presentation "Connectivism: Socializing Open Learning", VI International Seminar on Open Social Learning of the UOC UNESCO Chair in e-Learning.
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Simon PerkinsSHARE
Practicing Theory (or : Did Practice Kill Theory ?)
"Designerly ways of knowing, reflection in action/reflection on action, tacit knowledge, the language of things etc. The theoretical dimension of design research is usually described in numerous and various ways that tend to subsume in elegant formulas the complex relationships between designers and thinkers. Many design research bibliographies show a tendency to overquote a set of common references that could be perceived as the doxa of design research - either in the French theory (Deleuze, Baudrillard), or in the fashionable sociology of systems (Latour, Tarde) or the pragmatic approach (Schön, Simon, Dewey).
The Swiss Design Network one-day Symposium of 2011 Practicing Theory aims at understanding what are the real theoretical contexts of designers practicing design research, how these theoretical backgrounds are formed, explored and broaden, and what use is made of them in the everyday practice of a research project in design. Not only will we seek to understand where from designers think, but also in what directions their research could possibly push the activity of thinking. The aim is not to re-design the ideal library of design thinking, but on the contrary to interrogate the dialog that design research establishes with the historical discourse disciplines such as philosophy, sociology, semiotics or cognitive theories."
(Genève, University of Art and Design Geneva, 2011)
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Simon PerkinsSHARE
The evolution of Postmodernism
"On the way to postmodern, the struggle to reform modern capitalism's dark side, fragmented into a thousand strands. An era approach is rejected - dating the arrival of postmodernism is impossible as is the construction of a linear episodic narrative, moving from the premodern to the modern and then to postmodern. Instead postmodern methods, theories, and worldviews proliferate, as do modern and premodern ones. There are numerous postmodern approaches ranging from naive postmodernism (McPostmodernism) that hails the arrival of postindustrial and complex/adaptive organizations, Baudrillard's and Lyotard's versions of radical breaks from modernity, to others seeking more integration with critical theory. Some claim to have moved beyond postmodern to something called postpostmodern that would include hybrids (postmodern variants with modern and premodern), language 'heteroglossia' (the coexistence of many voices at the same time in tension with each other), and various 'dark side postmoderns' looking at global reterritorialization, postmodern war, postcolonialism and the ills of capitalism"
(David M. Boje, 2007)
1). Postmodernism - by David M. Boje (2007) To appear in Yiannis Gabriel’s Thesaurus, London: Oxford University Press, forthcoming
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Simon PerkinsSHARE
Manuel Castells: Network Theories of Power
Manuel Castells (20 February 2010) 'Network Theories of Power', University of Southern California
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Simon PerkinsSHARE
