Constituent Areas of Design Science

Abstract

In Chapter 5, we presented the structure of Design Science. Its elements were shown in figure 5╌2 as the four partial areas of Design Science, which were derived from two selected features of Design Scientific statements from figure 5╌1. In this chapter we will explore these partial areas, and formulate an accurate position of questions which should be answered by die corresponding area, so that the goals of Design Science can be reached. In addition the possible forms of representation are considered and the most favorable variants selected and justified. Thus the structures of the partial areas in which the technical knowledge is categorized and ordered can be established. The relationships among these areas and to the outside of the system will also be explored, where this is likely to enhance understanding.

According to our times and our experience we represent the natural and human world by a great set of images. To this set of images we apply, as a template, a system of hypotheses which seems to us coherent. The difficulty in scientific advance arises when some new experience necessitates a reassembling of the pattern of our images. Carl Frederick Abel Pantin, in The Relation between the Sciences, London: Cambridge U.P., 1968

Theory and Practice are not antagonistic, as is so often tacitly assumed. Theory is not necessarily unpractical, nor Practice unscientific, although both of these things may occur….. It is not a matter of merely setting forth in a new form and order that which is already known….. On the contrary, if the new theory is to lay claim to general interest, it must be capable of producing something new; it must make problems solvable which before could not be solved in a systematic way. Reuleaux, F., Theoretische Kinematik, Braunschweig: Vieweg, 1875 Reuleaux, F., The Kinematics of Machinery, London: Macmillan, 1876 and New York: Dover, 1963 (translated by B. W. Kennedy), Introduction