Creative rationality and design education: Towards a pedagogy of adventure
Because firms that use their design activity as a strategic driver are five times as likely to develop new products as compared to firms that do not do it (Swedish Industrial Design Foundation, 2008; European Commission, 2009), improving European innovation capacity requires a shift of focus from exclusive R&D to design.
If design contributes to innovation, then, we aim, as design theorists, to understand the reason and the level of its contribution. Our hypothesis is that design involves a specific rationality which has been underestimated in the Occidental thought as we show it in the first part of our paper. We call it "creative rationality".
To consider creative rationality is not a pure theoretical stake. It has pedagogical implications. It leads to abandon the kind of contemplative, dogmatic, analytic rationality which is usually taught in the engineering Universities as if techniques were a mere application of a contemplative, essential science.
More precisely, according to us, the design education implies a "pedagogy of adventure" which leads students and professors to build a new relationship with knowledge. This kind of pedagogy must invite students to be confronted with the unknown and the unforeseen. It impels professors to abandon the idea that they are the guardians of a finite knowledge they must pass on. They are not the ones who drive their students towards an already known result but the ones who teach them to mobilize their knowledge in an adventurous process. In such a pedagogy, the object of evaluation is not the result per se but the capacity of students to be engaged in a creative process.
Want to read more? Download the full paper (PDF - 74KB).*
*This paper has been provided for educational purposes may not be republished without permission from the author.
If design contributes to innovation, then, we aim, as design theorists, to understand the reason and the level of its contribution. Our hypothesis is that design involves a specific rationality which has been underestimated in the Occidental thought as we show it in the first part of our paper. We call it "creative rationality".
To consider creative rationality is not a pure theoretical stake. It has pedagogical implications. It leads to abandon the kind of contemplative, dogmatic, analytic rationality which is usually taught in the engineering Universities as if techniques were a mere application of a contemplative, essential science.
More precisely, according to us, the design education implies a "pedagogy of adventure" which leads students and professors to build a new relationship with knowledge. This kind of pedagogy must invite students to be confronted with the unknown and the unforeseen. It impels professors to abandon the idea that they are the guardians of a finite knowledge they must pass on. They are not the ones who drive their students towards an already known result but the ones who teach them to mobilize their knowledge in an adventurous process. In such a pedagogy, the object of evaluation is not the result per se but the capacity of students to be engaged in a creative process.
Want to read more? Download the full paper (PDF - 74KB).*
*This paper has been provided for educational purposes may not be republished without permission from the author.
About the author
Joëlle Forest has a PHD in economics, and is an Associate Professor in Department of Humanities of the National Institute of Applied Sciences of Lyon (France). Co-director of the interdisciplinary research unit STOICA. Her research works are based on the relation between design and innovation. Considering the creative nature of design leads to take into account the creative rationality. Such a point of view stresses that without knowledge production innovation can not occurs. Her current researches pursue two objectives. The first one aims at developing a model of the production of knowledge. The second aims at reintegrating the question of the production of the knowledge in territorial policies such as the clusters policies.
Joëlle Forest
Associate professor
Université de Lyon
INSA de Lyon, STOICA (EA 4148)
1 rue des Humanités
69621 Villeurbanne Cedex France
t: +33 0 472436238
f: +33 0 472437266
e:
Michel Faucheux has a PHD in French Literature and a Doctorat d’Etat des Lettres. He is an Associate Professor in Department of Humanities of the National Institute of Applied Sciences of Lyon (France). Head of the interdisciplinary research unit STOICA Former head of the Department of Humanities, INSA Lyon, his current research work deals with the function of narration in Design, the link between narration and techniques and the symbolical mediation of technology. He explains that narration could be considered as a basic principle of mind and how our knowledge could be organized as stories.
Michel Faucheux
Associate professor
Université de Lyon
INSA de Lyon, STOICA (EA 4148)
1 rue des Humanités
69621 Villeurbanne Cedex France
t: +33 0 472438544
f: +33 0 472437266
e: michel.faucheux@insa-lyon.fr
Joëlle Forest
Associate professor
Université de Lyon
INSA de Lyon, STOICA (EA 4148)
1 rue des Humanités
69621 Villeurbanne Cedex France
t: +33 0 472436238
f: +33 0 472437266
e:
Michel Faucheux has a PHD in French Literature and a Doctorat d’Etat des Lettres. He is an Associate Professor in Department of Humanities of the National Institute of Applied Sciences of Lyon (France). Head of the interdisciplinary research unit STOICA Former head of the Department of Humanities, INSA Lyon, his current research work deals with the function of narration in Design, the link between narration and techniques and the symbolical mediation of technology. He explains that narration could be considered as a basic principle of mind and how our knowledge could be organized as stories.
Michel Faucheux
Associate professor
Université de Lyon
INSA de Lyon, STOICA (EA 4148)
1 rue des Humanités
69621 Villeurbanne Cedex France
t: +33 0 472438544
f: +33 0 472437266
e: michel.faucheux@insa-lyon.fr
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