This section starts the second part of the study. In the previous part, the practical status of the TPP was outlined, this part provides the ``theoretical'' status. The present gap between theory and practice has evolved over many years, but this section is interested in its recent development. This section traces the development to the emergence of the sciences and their separation from philosophy, to the attitude of educational programs influenced by the culture in which they are embedded, and to the ignorance of social aspects in research. All these aspects need to be reversed if a solution to the TPP is sought.
In relation to the U.S., Feibleman (1982) proposed
a historical course of events leading to this
situation. First, the positivists viewed scientific knowledge as the only
valid knowledge, and viewed the task of philosophy as merely a commentary on
science. This led positivism into a position where it could not contribute
anything to the process of gaining knowledge and therefore the movement
shrank.
Meanwhile, it left a mark by placing a so-called desired distinction between
theory and practice. Second, the pragmatism in the U.S. reinforced the negative effects of positivism by
stating that what works is true. These two contradicting views, placing high
value on only one of the theory-practice poles, intensified the TPP. Ihde
(1979) articulated a similar
explanation. Until recently, philosophers were also the practicing
scientists. This started changing during the Renaissance and accelerated in
the 19th century. There were two ways for the philosophers to react to the
newly emancipated sciences: accommodation and reclamation. The positivist
accommodation way allowed the new sciences to co-exist such that each branch
can pursue its goals ``freely;'' while the phenomenologist reclamation way
tried to reformulate the foundations of the new sciences and bring them back
into philosophy. Both methods were not successful; the first led to
ignorance while the second to lack of cooperation.
Beside the contribution of philosophy, there were educational influences on the development of the TPP. In relation to engineering, over the years, learning the practice moved from an apprenticeship mode of acquiring skills to the education mode of acquiring engineering skills almost inclusively consisting of analysis and scientific theories [Kerr and Pipes1987]. Le Moigne (1981) provided two explanations for this transition. First, when this transition took place in Europe at about 1750, when the first engineering schools were founded, engineering schools where not well established and borrowed the scientific metaphor to gain acceptance. Second, some training schools, such as the military schools, preferred training ``executing'' technicians, rather than ``responsible'' designers. Brown (1936) described a similar course of events in the U.S. From 1812, when the first school was opened, to 1870, the focus of education was on practice, thereafter, a marked change towards the sciences took place. The scientific metaphor of engineering education persists until today and moreover has been constantly strengthened since World War II [National Research Council1986a, /1983]. In the above educational process, engineers tended to suppress their intuitive and feeling faculties by relying on reasoning [Mumford1952]. / (1983) also explained
I have become convinced that universities are not devoted to the production and distribution of fundamental knowledge in general. They are institutions committed, for the most part, to a particular epistemology, a view of knowledge that fosters selective inattention to practical competence and professional artistry. (p. vii)The same basic attitude of universities continues at the Ph.D. level when training the researchers of the future. According to Eisner (1990), ``professionally socialized doctoral students in schools of education are often unable to question the premises upon which accepted research method rest. We usually do not encourage them to consider alternative--or haven't until quite recently.'' (p. 89)
Since universities, and mostly engineering schools are those educating practitioners, each practitioner, being a theoretician, ignores the practical issues of his or her work. On the other hand, each practitioner, being a practitioner, cannot understand the issues discussed about his or her profession by the theoreticians. As a practical person, the practitioner remembers the disrespect from the theoreticians, which can be traced to the Greeks' view on the superiority of theoria upon praxis. Therefore, the practitioner does not want to get involved in the theory of his or her work. The practitioner will respond to potential interaction from the theoretician by saying ``while I do not accept your view of knowledge, I cannot describe my own.'' ([/1983], p. viii; emphasis in the original)
Simon, at his 1969 lecture at MIT [Simon1981], outlined a
program for teaching the new science of design. However, Simon's suggestions
have not received serious considerations from engineering schools although
they are
hard-core positivistic. I would argue that even Simon's ideas were too
radical for traditional engineering schools that still suffer from an
inferiority complex towards science. In light of this argument, a call for a
new liberal art of design [Buchanan1992], is likely to receive no
more attention by engineering schools than did Simon's ideas.
There are additional causes maintaining the gap between theory and practice. To illustrate, most previous research on engineering design has concentrated on the activity of a single designer, and mostly on the analysis techniques the designer uses or should use. This seemingly enabled, although incorrectly, ignoring social issues in the development of design support tools. Naturally, the analytic/linguistic paradigm of philosophy was adopted, resulting in the development of logic and languages for representing and solving design problems. The products of this research paradigm are useful for some engineering activities since they may provide capabilities that can complement or extend human abilities. Nevertheless, except for few exceptions, research results are not used by designers.
Research on engineering design hardly pays attention to the actual design
practice in large organizations. In fact, beside few exceptions such as
Hales' (1987) study, detailed observational studies
are nonexistent in the literature: while it is currently understood that the
major impediment for technological progress is the support of design activities involving
large group efforts, necessarily, bringing in social and psychological
concerns. This new emphasis of research on group work, cooperation,
communication, and sharing as methods for effectively and concurrently
developing new technologies requires a shift in philosophical emphasis to
the experiental/continental paradigms of philosophy.
Reversing the current trend in research and practice is hard, as discussed in section 3, researchers find it hard to give up or ``free'' themselves from their positivist positions. They tend to explore and research the sources of problems instead of solving them. Furthermore, as will be discussed in the next section, any solution must take into account the cultural context in which it is advanced. Failure to attend to the underlying culture and its philosophy renders the solution almost impossible.
The development of the TPP discussed before was contextualized in the Western, or specifically in the American, culture. It is clear that different cultures give rise to different circumstances that may lead to different relationships between theory and practice. One example is manifest in the different ancient conceptions of theory and practice shared by the Greeks and the Babylonians' or Egyptians [Spielberg and Anderson1985]. The Greeks thought that human understanding is dependent on God's illumination, and of course, their philosophers, the knowledgable people, insisted that knowledge comes through a divine mind. The Greeks valued scientific knowledge ( theoria) more than other two types of knowledge: the practical ( praxis) and the technical (poiesis). Knowledge of science was knowledge of the ``Good.'' Studies on arithmetic, geometry, and astronomy were carried out for the purpose of understanding their essential notions as related to the ``Good.'' In contrast, the Babylonians and Egyptians were more concerned with the practical aspects of their scientific investigations; they used the accurate astronomical data they have accumulated for the purpose of commerce, surveying, civil engineering, and navigation. In order to examine the contemporary cultural perspective of the TPP, I will briefly examine Japanese culture and economical success as a reflection of a fruitful relationship between theory and practice [Fujisawa1959, Moore1967, Morishima1982].
Often, when we read an analysis of Japanese technological organizations distilled from cultural background such as Odaka, Ono, and Adachi's (1988) or Shingo's (1989) studies of Japanese automobile industry, we tend to think that Japanese success depends on methods that can be borrowed and implemented independent of their larger cultural context. Brown and Daneke (1990) maintained that, ``studies continue to fall prey to a sort of `forest and trees' problem. ... Several studies have failed to grasp the complex web of synergistic interactions between strategic management, technological innovation, and the broader sociocultural system in Japan.'' (p. 144) In an attempt to remedy this flaw, Brown and Daneke briefly discussed special features of Japanese organizations, stemming from Japanese culture, which is so different from U.S. culture. Japanese firms stress long-term organizational survival and growth, leading to the development of long-term relationships between the players in the organization success such as: employers, sub-contractors, distributors, banks, etc. These players are considered as priceless resources for the organization. The close relationships between the participants, leading to mutual dependency, enable the development (and evolution) of common goals that guide the organization. Shared goals allow for sharing risks and better communication, resulting in more innovative and good quality products. Therefore, the successful technological outcomes are facilitated by processes embedded in the Japanese culture; these processes, however, are not detailed in this study.
Even if the success of organizations is heavily dependent on culture and
cannot be replicated elsewhere, maybe it is still feasible to borrow
specific tools or methods. Hauser and Clausing (1988) discussed
the ``house of quality,'' the basic tool of the management approach known as
quality function deployment (QFD) originated in Japan. The central
motivation behind QFD is the belief that products should reflect the
customers' will. The implementation of this belief requires devising
procedures/tools for communicating customers' will into the design and
manufacturing processes. This communication is not enough, what is needed is that
``companies learn from customer experience and reconcile what they want with
what engineers can reasonably build.'' (p. 64) To achieve this
reconciliation, the ``house of quality'' is also used to record the views of
the engineers, and other participants in the process.
There is no fixed procedure for using the information detailed in the house, the house's main purpose is to promote understanding the priorities and goals of all groups involved in the design process. The useful use of the information requires having the ``right'' cultural inclination to engage in the communication, negotiation, and sharing activities. As summarized by Hauser and Clausing,
what is ... not simple is developing an organization capable of absorbing elegant ideas. The principal benefit of the houses of quality is quality in-house. It gets people thinking in the right directions and thinking together. For most U.S. companies, this alone amounts to a quiet revolution. (p. 73)Similar to Brown and Daneke's study, Hauser and Clausing's study, although acknowledging the significant role of culture, did not address the cultural and philosophical thoughts underlying the successful use of the ``house of quality.'' In what follows, I attempt to better tie Japan's economical success to its culture and philosophy.
Contemporary Japanese culture and philosophical thought owe their origins
to the introduction of Taoism, Confucianism and Buddhism from China and
their blending into the native Shinto whose universal relativism
facilitated the integration of the new philosophies. Instead of simply
borrowing these philosophies, the integration involved adaptations that
suited the interests of the ruling family [Miyamoto1967]. On the
one hand, the new harmony fostered strong community ties, loyalty, and
nationalism; while on the other hand, it prevented individualism and
liberalism from influencing the Japanese society.
The nationalistic attitude of Japanese, which puts the interests of the community above those of the individual, and the Shinto's relativism, which could transcend common Western dualisms, had a profound influence on Japanese history. In his forward to Carter's (1980) book, Kasulis discussed the conscious decision of Japan to modernize itself as a means of self-protection against any imperialistic endeavor so common in the middle of the 19th century. Whereas the early Meiji intellectuals thought that the modernization is independent to maintaining the Japanese culture, latter intellectuals became skeptic. The understanding that culture and technological progress cannot be separated went as far as suggesting that the Japanese people convert to Christianity, which as an individual faith could be practiced, according to Fujisawa (1959), parallel to the Shinto communal faith. Although, few Japanese converted to Christianity, the idea itself shows the extent to which Japanese appreciated the influence of culture and religion on technological change.
The Japanese experience tells us that there is an iterative or intertwined relationship between culture and philosophy and economical success or politics [Morishima1982]. If it is an explicit aim that certain material conditions be changed, for example, the relationship between theory and practice, for the purpose of advancing technology, it is crucial to appreciate the potential difficulties in trying to borrow techniques from different cultures. As Morishima said:
it is not only that a given ideology frequently plays a role of crucial importance at a turning point in history, but also that it has the effect of restricting the possibilities of day-to-day economic activity to within the framework peculiar to that ideology. ... No country can progress while it disregards its own past which constraints its subsequent course of development. ... A policy which has been proven to be successful for Japan may turn out to be unworkable in Britain and vice versa, because of the differences in their ethoses, in the ways of behaviours of their peoples and in all the other cultural characteristics which they have inherited from their respective pasts. (p. 200-201)
Since the successful borrowing of techniques from one culture to another involves certain adaptations of the target culture, a new problem, which I call the impersonation problem, arise within the positivist perspective. Namely,
given a group of people from a target culture having some desired goals; select a source culture among all cultures that provide directions for achieving these goals,
The deficiency of the above formulation is that it assumes that people can
engage in a rational selection between cultures, a view in line with
positivism. This granted, I can illustrate the difficulty of solving the
problem as posed. The ability to engage in the impersonation process is a
function of the preparedness of each individual in the ethos of the new
culture. To illustrate, if the goal is the attainment of economical success
or technological progress, there are several target cultures, all different in
some aspects, that can provide some directions, the Japanese or Scandinavian
being two examples. Therefore, it is important to study their cultures and make their
philosophical foundations explicit to facilitate an informative decision as
to the selection of the source culture.
If the target culture is the American, there may be several problems in borrowing techniques from either the Japanese or Scandinavian cultures. To briefly illustrate, both cultures have a strong notion of community interests: in Japan they are above those of the individual and in Scandinavia they facilitate the good of each individual [Floyd et al1989, Scott1975]. In addition, Japan's ignorance of individualism and liberalism and the Scandinavian socialism (or egalitarianism) are embedded in techniques used to further technology and economy. If techniques are to be borrowed from these cultures, the American impersonator will have to select between nationalistic or socialistic principles, not an easy choice indeed.
Although the borrowing of methods is difficult, there are special cases where techniques could be borrowed successfully, in particular, when common interests where established or recognized before the techniques were used. Two examples discussed before are the Xerox PAR project in which workers had no choice but to participate and von Hippel's examples discussing acts of communication/participation between two beneficial parties.
So far, I have concentrated on the practical, cultural, and developmental aspects of the TPP. This section deals with the philosophical background of the problem. Two perspectives are discussed: the mind-body problem, which is the simpler in the context of this study, and the more involved theoria-praxis distinction.
The mind-body problem
The TPP is one of the dualities that can be associated with the mind-body distinction since theory originates in the mind and practice is the action of the body. The mind-body distinction has been prevalent in many cultures, since ancient times [McDougall1961]; and has another analogue beside the TPP, namely, the relation between science and technology [Ihde1979].
There are at least four alternatives for viewing the mind-body problem [Ihde1979, Levinson1988]. (1) Identity: Mind and body are two manifestation of the same thing. Contemporary views about identity often turn to be one of the following two reductionist views. (2) Materialistic: This view reduces mind to nothing but a brain matter. This view is advocated by Artificial Intelligence which inspires a significant part of design research; on the other hand, the AI view of science and technology is idealistic: Science precedes and is more important than technology. (3) Idealistic: This view reduces everything we perceive to be the creation of the mind; it is unpopular in contemporary epistemology. (4) Dualistic: This view regards mind and body as separate entities that interact. This dualism maintain that the interaction will always sustains its epistemological significance even if one would devise an explanation of ideas as derived from matter (or vice versa). The distinction will prevail since any explanation is bound to be fallible [Popper1965].
The mind-body dualism does not imply irreducibility. In fact, technology is a manifestation of ideas in material or material embodiment of ideas. It therefore refutes the strictly materialistic or idealistic views. Moreover, it represents a continuous interaction between the mind and the body.
Levinson (1988) discussed the attempts of several philosophers to address the mind-body problem. Kant thought that ``human knowledge is the alteration of our experience or knowledge of the world that inevitably occurs when we experience or know the world.'' (p. 69) By this, Kant provided an answer to the epistemological problem about the source of knowledge and provided insight about ontology: without mind, the world is a senseless place. The objection to Kant is that his analysis discussed the interaction of mind-matter from the perspective of the human intellect only and neglected the changing nature of the world. Both flaws can be fixed by introducing technology as the interaction between mind-matter and as a continuous re-rendering of the world. This change is the only distinction between technology as an embodied interaction and an unembodied knowledge.
Acknowledging the changing nature of the world requires emphasizing the actions that change it. Marx emphasis on action while downplaying the contribution of the thinker looses some of the importance of technology as an interaction of mind-matter; nevertheless, Levinson says that ``In making the act of labor a labor of love, Marx restores much of the quintessentially human aspects of technology which his downplaying of mind loses.'' (p. 75) Marx interactionism is partial because it is fully materialistic, a contrast to the fully intellectual interaction of Kant.
Popper's ``three world'' scheme is the most illuminating for understanding the interactionist mind-body system [Levinson1988]: World 1 is the material world, World 2 consists of the subjective realm of thinking, feeling, and imagining etc., and World 3 consists of the results of processes such as ideas, strategies. Levinson modified this structure to be: W1 which consists of all natural and living material but humans, W2 which consists of humans, and W3 which consists of human ideas that were communicated (not-communicated ideas remain in W2). Communication gives ideas, not just their embodiment in material, but more importantly, a life of their own.
If a view is to be consistent, the same relationship should prevail in the three analogues: mind-body, theory-practice, and science-technology. While the interactionist view easily applies to all, the materialist mind-body view of most positivist scientists [Ihde1979] contradicts the idealistic view of science that they practice. In fact, for some researchers, the idealistic view of science allows ignoring the impact of the ``value-free knowledge'' they generate, while their research is sponsored by agencies for the materialistic purpose of developing unethical technologies.
I adopt the dualistic view and maintain it through the three analogues. By making sure that consistency is maintained, I prevent the distortion introduce by the inconsistencies of the materialistic mind-body view.
The theoria-praxis distinction
The second perspective of the TPP originates from the distinction between Aristotle's concepts of theoria and praxis. Theoria was concerned with theoretical knowledge (epistemé) of the given things in the world or with knowledge ``for its own sake.'' Praxis was concerned with knowledge about the politics and ethics of practical discourse or judgment (phronesis). In addition to these two concepts, there was poiesis, dealing with productive knowledge or technical skills (techné). Aristotle viewed both phronesis and techné as preconditions of the life of human organizations, but such that could not be derived or justified by theory [McCarthy1978]. Both three metaphysical categories of knowledge contained a theory and practical aspects and were in fact ways of living (in addition to the fourth way of those hard laborers at the bottom of the social structure) [Hickman1990].
While the industrial revolution was the result of techné, the view of technology as applied science was since strengthened, even though engineers occasionally criticized this view [Vincenti1984]. This trend pushed the theoria sphere into the praxis sphere and made the praxis sphere to be simple techné [McCarthy1978]. It is the aim of this study to try and recover praxis from its current position; furthermore the growing complexity of artifacts built today and their dependence on social processes make praxis more crucial to design than techné. Therefore I will concentrate on the relations between theoria and praxis henceforth.
The TPP starts with the hierarchical structure of ways of living the Greeks devised. Putting theoria on top as superior to praxis, makes it appealing for people to argue that they practice theoria rather than praxis. In the seventeenth century, Hobbes argued that science is a legitimate way to study human behavior. Thus, given the right knowledge (which few could have), it would be possible to manipulate human life toward proper ordering. Beside being ideologically incorrect, this view wrongly assumed that values can be subject to scientific inquiry. In contrast, science could help
`` in analyzing the preconditions and consequences of a given course of actions, ... or even in criticizing proposed ends from the point of view of their technical feasibility. But the choice of ends itself, the adoption of certain interests to the exclusion of others, was ultimately a question of values and not facts, a matter for decision and not for demonstration. The failure to recognize and honor this strict separation of knowledge from morality was a principle cause for the retarded development of social science. The traditional insinuation of normative considerations into social inquiry could result dogmatism and ideology but never in the cumulative progress of objective knowledge characteristic of empirical science. ([McCarthy1978], p. 5, emphasis in the original)
If we break away from the positivist view of science as Feyerabend (1975), Habermas (1971), Kuhn (1962), Maxwell (1984), Toulmin (1972), and others have been telling us we will be able to appreciate contemporary science as a practice of politics but lacking ethics. It is the result of the ingenious design of positivism: first, positivism turned the question of the practice of science (i.e., its politics and ethics) to the practice of the scientific method only, and then, positivism excluded discussion about the conduct of science as being outside the scope of inquiry by being non empirical or unscientific [Maxwell1984, McCarthy1978]. Furthermore, while positivism begun with the explicit aim to generate knowledge that will improve society and human life [Bacon1967], later, positivism argued that such subjective issues must be removed from inquiry to enable the generation of knowledge that can improve them. This rendered positivism, the defender of reason and rationality, irrational; in fact, positivism suffer from rationalistic neurosis [Maxwell1984].
But in spite of the evidence against positivism, the research community, mostly remote from such criticisms and debates, thinks it is practicing theory, while in fact it is practicing a mix of theoria and praxis, and as I said previously, in an irrational manner. Partridge's (1985) analysis illustrates the mistake of the research community.
Although the goal of theoria is knowledge for `its own sake,' as the saying goes, we should also recognize that knowledge of this kind is only partly values for this reason. It is also of instrumental, pragmatic value to persons whose rank, income, and power within the college depend upon displays of certain kinds of knowledge. Outside of this interactional context the knowledge may or may not be known, pragmatically useful, or ethically relevant to anyone or any group; nor are these supposed to be important to its existence and status as knowledge within the college. On the other hand, it is impossible to ignore the fact that knowledge generated for `its own sake' is often of interest to the Department of Defense, Standard Oil Company of California, the City Government of Atlanta, Georgia, and other tax-payers, donors, and contractors that provide funds to colleges and universities. Transmission of such knowledge to the public domain through publication or other ways is a normal function of theoria; the wise among us `publish or perish' as the saying goes. (p. 143, emphasis in the original)
The dialogue
After establishing that the practice of any inquiry is a political action with ethical consequences, there arise the question, formulated by Kant, of how can reason apply to such practical actions. This question relates to the mind-body problem and although technology demonstrates its manifestation, it does not explain its possibility. The possibility of practical reason is predicated on the concept of dialogue [Bubner1988]. One can identify at least two types of dialogues: one aiming at understanding, and another aiming at practical action. Socrates' dialogues were of the first type: they demonstrated that possessing true knowledge or understanding involve more than an exchange of words.
Dialogues aiming at actions are based on establishing and evolving a shared understanding of the values that need to guide the activities. Maxwell (1984), called for a cooperative mode of activity as the basis for achieving valued goals such as human freedom. While cooperation may be perceived as contrary to individual freedom, cooperation is both dependent on and facilitates individual freedom. The facilitation of cooperation, in spite of the logistic problems involved, should be one of the main tasks of any inquiry.
Maxwell appealed to the ideological benefit from cooperation as a facilitator and a condition of true freedom. Similarly, Habermas' earlier work on critical theory was aimed at emancipation, but his later work is aimed at developing a comprehensive social theory as a theory of communication [Braaten1991, McCarthy1978, Habermas1984]. The main distinction from positivists theories and the theory of communicative action that is relevant to the TPP is the fact that the former replaces pre-theoretical knowledge by theories while the latter makes pre-theoretical knowledge explicit in the theory ([McCarthy1978], p. 278).
The theory of communication is developed to show how rationality is manifested in social interaction. As such, it can be critical when used to reconstruct actual history and be explanatory when it reconstructs the choices (created through some consensus building) made throughout history by various cultures. In contrast to his earlier work, the theory does not provide a therapeutic explanation [Braaten1991]. The communicative theory encompass not only the linguistic competence of Chomsky, but also aspects of the linguistic performance or communication competence. In fact, the theory must be capable of accounting for actual communication. Furthermore, Habermas attempts to explain the current distorted situation of modern society (including the TPP) by describing it as ``the result of a `one sidedness' in the rationalization of Western societies.'' ([Braaten1991], p. 10) This reflect the contribution of the theory of communicative action to addressing the TPP. This contribution, however, is by no means without criticism [Honneth and Joas1991, Thompson and Held1982].
The application of reason is predicated on commitment to some standards of communication which, in turn, is inherently oriented towards mutual understanding. Habermas defined three types of arguments that are valid: theoretical, normative and aesthetical. The human capacity of communicative rational action is manifested in the ability to articulate and defend validity claims. This ability is the basis of social bond [Braaten1991, Habermas1979].
According to Habermas, communication can be rational if there is a commitment to recognize the different perspectives of people in an interaction, reflect upon them, criticize, and arrive at consensus, that is shared by all. The interaction is necessary since an individual cannot be objective about his or her experiences unless they are subjected to self reflection and collective criticism through a network of communicative actions, thereby made intersubjective.
Finally, the development of the theory is through ``the theorist's participation in a `dialogue' with the evolving culture is a two-way exchange.'' ([Braaten1991], p. 16) Recalling that the theory of communicative action is experimental, this dialogue may modify or invalidate the theory.
There is one more revealing view of dialogue which preceded all the above. It was Buber who in 1913 (Daniel) and 1923 (I and Thou) described three type of dialogues: (1) a monologue disguised as a dialogue aiming at the exploitation of one another as means to ends, (2) technical dialogue aimed at understanding, and (3) a genuine dialogue where each participants has the intention of establishing a living mutual relationship with the other [Arnett1986, Buber1958, Buber1964, Buber1972].
In the first two types of dialogues a human perceives the other dialogue participant(s) as It: detached and indifferent entities. This dialogue is the I-It relation of Buber. In the third type, a new concept emerges: the Thou, leading to the I-Thou relationships. This relationship is of different ontological significance than the I-It relation [Bergman1991]. The genuine dialogue--the I-Thou relationship--requires a commitment to an effortful process. The essence of dialogue is the seeking for something new, therefore, one must actively be open to accept new ideas. A new agreement or even a disagreement may result from a dialogue, both requiring that a certain level of understanding is reached in the dialogue. This openness and flexibility means that a dialogue cannot be aimed at persuasion or delusion [/1988], nor should a dialogue be used to reinforce old opinions: ``Paradoxically, if we adopt that meaning which reinforces our preconceived opinions, `that in which we recognize ourselves', we enter another arena - that of monologue.'' ([Florin et al1988], p. 24) A true dialogue means reciprocity and mutual dependence. A dialogue requires an active facilitation of the above conditions; one must be strong to resist the tendency to reduce effort, take a leisure attitude toward the world (of It), which do not demand the I-Thou tension [Bergman1991].
These three types of dialogue may occur in three spheres: with
nature, with humans, and with spirit
[Bergman1991, Buber1958]. For example, one can treat
nature in a compassionate manner, establish genuine relationships with people,
and engage in artistic creation through a genuine dialogue, or, one can use
or ignore nature, be indifferent to people, and lack creativity, if one can
only engage in a technical dialogue.
These three types of dialogues provide the basis for explaining the TPP. A dialogue is the ethical practice of actions, namely praxis. A genuine dialogue must be attached to reality and it involves an awareness of it. A dialogue lives in the present, is unique and cannot be reproduced, yet, its aim is directed at the future. A dialogue exceeds the capability of what can be formalized; its formalization reduces it to the I-It, to the exclusion of the possibility of the I-Thou relationship. The practice of theory is a technical dialogue. Its result is science that being an abstraction of the world fails to perceive the real world [Bergman1991].
According to Buber, knowledge grows from alternate action and reflection, participation and distance, balance between unity and parity. No synthesis, as in the synthesis of thesis and antithesis of Hegel dialectic, is assumed. Rather the tension between these poles maintains both existence.
The evolution of methodology
Buber's concept of dialogue has a profound influence on the methodology discussed later. It is also useful for understanding the nature of this methodology or any inquiry. Analogues to the continuous interactive nature between mind and body discussed before, and the openness required in any genuine dialogue, no fixed assumption can be made about any inquiry. Inquiry is a continuous never-ending activity, one ``should forever be in the process of exploring, of seeking out.'' ([Guba1990], p. 348). The willingness to search and reflect is crucial to coping with the changing world. Furthermore, as Toulmin (1972) said: ``a man demonstrates his rationality, not by a commitment to fixed ideas, stereotyped procedures, or immutable concepts, but by the manner in which, and the occasions on which, he changes those ideas, procedures and concepts.'' (p. x)
It is clear that the subject matter of the inquiry changes over time: ``Concepts, like individuals, have histories, and are just as incapable of withstanding the ravages of time as are individuals.'' (Kierkegaard, The Concept of Irony, cited by Toulmin, 1972, p. x). Not only the concepts of inquiry are not fixed but neither epistemology nor methodology is ``about the nature of truth, but rather involves the study of the social practices by which communities develop a basis for warranted belief and action.'' (Giarelli, 1988, p. 26, cited by Schwandt, 1990) Similar ideas about the evolutionary nature and meaning of concepts such as induction, theory, hypothesis, empirical testing, epistemology, methodology, etc. were discussed by many others philosophers [Habermas1971, Peirce1955, Rorty1979].
Part II of the study discussed the TPP from the ``theoretical perspective.'' It begun with an outline of the development of the problem, often mirroring political interests that exacerbate or conceal it. Ignoring the fundamental problems leads to explore solutions elsewhere, for example, by importing techniques from other cultures. The expected failure of these attempts forces the reconsideration of the cultural and philosophical roots of the problem.
The philosophical analysis of the TPP begins to hint at possible solutions based on restoring the full meaning of praxis that was degenerated to techné. In involves the understanding that science, technology and the solution to the problem are based on dynamic interactive social constructions. While rough solution can be outlined based on dialogue, it is not clear that it will be welcome.