Beyond method and explanation: a new frontier

Through Metaphor to a Sustainable Ecology of Development Policies (Part #5)

---

[Parts: First | Prev | Next | Last | All] [Links: To-K | From-K | From-Kx | Refs ]

---

Many studies contributing to policy proposals continue to be made totally independently of any consideration of the imagery through which they may ultimately need to be presented. Many disciplines have a strong bias against imagery of any kind as well as against any consideration of the process whereby insights are communicated.

Such biases are inappropriate if only because of the recognized importance of metaphor and imagery in creative thinking (Van Noppen, at al., 1985), even in the hardest of sciences such asfundamental physics (Miller, 1986). It is clear however that within any disciplinary framework or jargon there is little need for imagery because the practitioners share a common imaginal framework. There are terms for everything that needs to be communicated.

The situation is quite different when dealing with policy proposals emanating from different disciplinary, political, cultural and ideological contexts. In such settings each faction tends to view the methods and explanations of others with suspicion or contempt. The language and concepts used communicate increasingly poorly according to the conceptual distance between them (Feyerabend, 1987). In parliamentary debate this is frequently signalled by the use of 'absurd', 'irrelevant', 'naive', 'irresponsible', 'incomprehensible' and 'ridiculous' in referring to proposals from opposing factions.

'Interdisciplinary method' is at this point a contradiction in terms. A discipline is characterized by its methods. Despite three decades of general systems, no interdisciplinary method appropriate to the complex challenge of the times has achieved any degree of acceptance. (For detailed review, see Section KC of the Encyclopedia (UIA, 1986)). "Where such 'methods' have been used in very specific situations, they take the form of administrative procedures for ensuring that a succession of experts comment or discuss issues, but without any pretence at conceptual integration in the final report. Integration is left to the end-user, as exemplified by a term in German translating as 'book-binding synthesis'.

Since this situation has prevailed through several development decades, during which 'interdisciplinarity' and 'integration' have been favoured buzz words, it is worth asking whether a more radical approach could not be fruitfully explored. Is it possible that the functionality which 'interdisciplinarity' and 'integration' endeavour to denote is to be found at a different level, and in a different form, than that at which the methodological and other differences are so evident ?

Specifically, are there comprehensible images or metaphors, of requisite complexity, onto which the insights of different constituencies of expertise can be mapped so as to establish the dynamics and boundaries of their relationships without eroding or destroying their identity ? This possibility, explored by Bateson (1987), appears to call for much comment and detailed explanation in the light of this or that methodology. But it could be argued that any such explanation would merely be a further contribution to the existing communication problem. A more fruitful route forward would be to consider ways of identifying, designing and testing such metaphors in practice.

This proposal is not as radical as it might appear. The most advanced thinking in many disciplines is expressed in terms of objects and surfaces in a complex space. In some cases computer techniques are used to assist visualization of such spaces as a guide to further theoretical development. The suggestion is that some effort be devoted to 'marrying' such uses of imagery with those developed by animators or with those based on features of the environment with which people have a familiar relationship.

---

[Parts: First | Prev | Next | Last | All] [Links: To-K | From-K | From-Kx | Refs ]