In this paper I shall criticise the notion of objectivity in design research methodology. I shall argue that the requirement for such objectivity is either implicit in the phrasing of research degree regulations, or is widely assumed in their interpretation. The philosophical error is the assumption that objectivity is either methodologically possible or desirable. I raise four temptations for ...

On February 2, 1983, during his lecture at Collège de France, Michel Foucault criticizes the concept of political (le politique). According to Foucault, shift from politics (la politique) masks “the specific problem and set problems politics, dunasteia, practice game, game as a field experience with its rules normativity, inasmuch it is indexed truth-telling involves certain relationship onesel...

The increasing importance of Business Process Modelling and Knowledge Management within economic reality as well as their common epistemological problem are good reasons to look for an integrative approach to both disciplines. The widely recognized lack of epistemological foundation in information systems research also applies to Business Process Modelling and Knowledge Management, thus making ...

Today many universities and colleges are using learning communities, or communities of practice, to enhance the learning of students, increasing knowledge retention, and increasing learner achievement. Early computer based learning focused on individual learning opportunities. Learners are offered learning opportunities that allow the learner to work at the learner’s desired times and speed wit...

Different views of learning and what it means to follow rules are discussed. The activities, the language and context of expertise and knowledge have traditionally often been neglected and underestimated as something ancillary to the real knowledge which lies "beyond" such surface manifestations and viewed as at most means to learn the knowledge beyond these aspects. The primacy of these aspect...

The theme of human action has undoubtedly been one of the central areas of investigation and debate within the sociological arena during the latter part of the 20 century. Among the ‘amalgamation of theories and theorists’ who have presented their accounts of human agency, two academics –and their ideashave monopolised most of the attention: Tony Giddens and his ‘Theory of Structuration’ and Pi...

Action research is actually suitable for any person who wishes to improve his or her performance; or any group or organization who hopes for doing the same. As a matter of fact, action research is widely used in education, especially by teachers who use it to improve their teaching. Teachers from all over the world, from the United States, Australia, New Zealand to Vietnam, etc have employed ac...

Ever since Darwin people have worried about the sceptical implications of evolution. If our minds are products of evolution like those of other animals, why suppose that the beliefs they produce are true, rather than merely useful? We consider this problem for beliefs in three different domains: religion, morality, and commonsense and scientific claims about matters of empirical fact. We identi...

An event is a spatio-temporally localizable occurrence. Each event in our universe can be defined within a two-dimensional space in which one dimension is causality and the other is serendipity. Unfortunately, the majority of scientists in the Modern Era in their fascination with rules of causality and wanting to believe in a complete deterministic expression of the universe have banished all n...

This paper considers distributed hydrological models in hydrology as an expression of a pragmatic realism. Some of the problems of distributed modelling are discussed including the problem of nonlinearity, the problem of scale, the problem of equifinality, the problem of uniqueness and the problem of uncertainty. A structure for the application of distributed modelling is suggested based on an ...