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New Experimentalism

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Drifting by Intention

Part of the book series: Design Research Foundations ((DERF))

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Abstract

This book has argued that the heart of constructive design research is usually a design experiment; it is a key vehicle of knowledge creation. In this chapter we study design experiments through a fairly recent philosophical debate that has been targeted against the theory-centric view of research. It is called ‘new experimentalism,’ which argues that experiments often create knowledge regardless of theory. Following new experimentalism, the hypothesis we explore in this chapter is that design experiments generate knowledge, but also that there are several kinds of experimental protocols in constructive design research.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    We use the term Wissenschaft here to point to design being a research practice concerned about making and deriving knowledge rather than posing a body of knowledge as inscribed in the use of the term science. We will return to difference in the following concluding chapter.

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Krogh, P.G., Koskinen, I. (2020). New Experimentalism. In: Drifting by Intention. Design Research Foundations. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-37896-7_8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-37896-7_8

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