Design Enquiry: Tacit Knowledge and Invention in Science

摘要

For some years, there has been discussion and speculation on the subject of "design enquiry," and a number of people, for example Richard Buchanan and Clive Dilnot, have looked for forms of enquiry appropriate to, or fruitful for, design as an academic and professional discipline. From a different perspective, Ranulph Glanville has suggested that the relationship between design and science might be redefined to acknowledge similarities of method that are disguised by forms of narrative employed by scientists. However, most contributions to these debates deal with generalizations, so I would like to propose some specific ways in which designers can explore and develop the concepts and practices of design enquiry. In particular, I would like to discuss a kind of enquiry in which designers can play a role in forming and pursuing questions that arise in the natural sciences, and I will suggest that this role might be extended into some other fields. In doing so, I will make reference to the subject of tacit knowledge, a concept which was formalized by Michael Polanyi in his consideration of the philosophy of science fifty years ago, and which has attracted continuing interest, but also some shallow interpretation since then.