Searching Knowledge for Design – Nurminen's "Humanistic Perspective" Revisited

The paper compares three debates form different times and areas: the foundational debate within IS in 1980s (represented by books by Winograd & Flores, Ehn, and Nurminen), and the current debates in Design Research (represented by Buchanan) and in practical philosophy (represented by Toulmin). It is found that in the core of the two first debates is the question of the nature of the knowledge used and produced in design, and that the perspective presented by Toulmin who uses Aristotle's three types of knowledge (episteme, techne and phronesis) as his starting point can be used to explain the debates. It is found that the phronesis-component of design knowledge is growing in importance, and that we do not have suitable approaches to deal with it and to integrate different types for design purposes. It is also found that Nurminen in his book 15 years ago has been anticipating some important aspects of the current debates.