How Criticism Inspires Better Research & Design
Channel: J. Nathan Matias
Date: 2020-04-09

How can we criticize something and also make constructive, creative contribtuions? In research and design, this is what Cornell professor Phoebe Sengers calls "Critical Technical Practice" (Philip Agre coined the term).

In the 19th century, the German philosopher GF Hegel described a way of thinking that he called *dialectic*, where you take an argument called a *thesis*, put it in contact with a critique called *antithesis* and try to arrive at something new, a *synthesis* that combines or negotiates between the two. In this video, I share an example with Tinkertoys and K'Nex.

Links:
- T.I.C.K.L.E.: https://civic.mit.edu/2012/9/4/introducing-tickle-the-toy-interface-construction-kit-learning-environment/
- More about Hegel's Dialectics: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/hegel-dialectics/
- Golan Levin and Shawn Sims's Free Universal Construction Kit: http://fffff.at/free-universal-construction-kit
- Critical Technical Practice as a Methodology for Values In Design (by Kirsten Boehner, Shay David, Jodish Kaye, and Phoebe Sengers) http://alumni.media.mit.edu/~jofish/writing/chi-05-values-workshop-cemcom-submission.pdf