Philosophical Foundations of the Maker Movement

Science has limits. The scientific method gets touched by social forces, at least according to philosophers such as Kuhn and Feyerabend.  Into this gap in science flows the notion of design by building and the maker movement.  Here we can design and build things with fewer of these social forces guiding our ways.  The following is extracted from my talk at the 4th International Conference on Design Creativity last Friday.

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“For it is owing to their wonder that men both now begin and at first began to philosophize” opined Aristotle who understood the importance of human curiosity and the notion of wonder. The maker movement reflects our appreciation of wonder, joy of discovery, and venturing into the unknown.

Data usually drives paradigms, from grounded theory approaches in the social sciences to inferential statistics. Other formal approaches to confirming hypotheses from data have been developed. For example, the Bayesian approach strives to quantify how data confirms one hypothesis over another. More evidence can elevate the “degree of belief” to a higher value and cause a convergence of mental models. However, data, or in a general sense evidence, are a product of data acquisition methods. Evidence is also routed through biases connected with epistemology and context. Moreover, evidence is routed through paradigms. All of these issues, whether data errors or biases are a threat to objectivity. The interface of evidence and bias can be summarized by Heisenberg’s assertion that the world cannot be separated from our perception of it.

Applying the notions of the philosophy of science to making may seem to push certain connections too far. Creating physical objects can create Locke’s notion of ‘sensitive knowledge’ in which sensory ideas are produced by an experience one does not understand. However, making, at least in the realm of inventing, relates to science in terms of empiricism and are seeking some flavor of usefulness. If one asserts that science contains helpful truths, makers can apply distinctive hermeneutics to pursue their goal. Interpretive epistemologies such as ethnography are common in making. A maker may use participant ethnography to investigate the needs of his or her community.

The philosophies of science provide helpful insights in recognizing that science has constraints in the forms of paradigms, group dynamics, intellectual ecologies, bias and errors. Furthermore, new objects and experiences can be created when working outside these constraints. Makers are free to work outside established paradigms and intellectual ecologies. Moreover, the sheer volume of production developed by makers can provide evidence of success in unexpected areas and favor participant based ethnographic design approaches. The melding of the voluminous potential of makers with information technology provides a tremendous resource for future advances.

Taken from my presentation at the 4th International Conference on Design Creativity. Complete paper available at: 

 https://www.academia.edu/29570967/Philosophical_Foundations_of_the_Maker_Movment