Author: Franco Schiaffino

franco@sitiogs.com

“Searching a Design Method for Teaching”

Contents

1. Key words
2. Introduction
3. Human Thinking
4. Rational Thinking and Intuition
5. Critical Analysis and Creativity
6. Women Think in a Different Way
7. Teaching Critical Analysis and Developing Creativity
8. Conclusions

1. Key words

Human thinking - rationality and intuition - creative process and critical analysis -
design method - divergent and convergent methods - integrating thinking phases -
synergy between rationality and intuition - edge between thinking phases - women as
a thinking model - rational scanner - designers as individuals - balanced teaching -
research line: professionals

2. Introduction

Science fractions the real into discrete units and turns them static, just like in
cinematography, whose sense of movement is the unreal juxtaposition of static
frames. This socialization of the real allows for a convenient linguistic labeling in
concepts also static and easily quantifiable. However, if intelligence, emerged as the
overcoming of instinct in a stage of biological evolution, is able to maintain its link
with consciousness but, at the same time, retrieve the instinctual, then emerges
intuition, which allows a deeper knowledge than the one provided by intelligence, and
makes it possible the overcoming of the barriers brought by a language incapable of
fusing with the real.

Henri Bergson

Creativity is thinking up new things. Innovation is doing new things.

Theodore Levitt

This paper is my invitation to find a design method for training including the creative
process and critical analysis in a balanced way, taking the concepts proposed by the
initial quotes as starting points.

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In pursuing this, I believe the understanding of human thinking models (both rational
and intuitive) is essential in order to compare them with critical analysis and the
creative process, generating new modes for developing knowledge.

Therefore, I will try to unveil some of our thinking patterns and how we generate
creative ideas.
I hope this will be useful in encouraging a series of debates so as to jointly search for
numerous lasting solutions.

3. Human Thinking

Human thinking is the most significant and complex product of our minds.

Thinking is a rational, intimate, and subjective psychic process aimed at learning,

understanding, considering, and reasoning on objects and events.

Intuition results from early intellectual experiences and several branches of

philosophy consider it a form of knowledge.

Thoughts are any products generated by our mind, including rational activities of the
intellect or imagination abstractions – anything of a mental nature is considered
thinking, be it abstract, rational, intuitive, creative, etc.

Language, expressing thinking in oral or written form for communication and

understanding, is used to generate and express thoughts.

Among other things, thinking allows generating abstract knowledge, representing

images of something not present, and planning or scheduling of future tasks.

For instance, thinking allows drawing a map and understanding it is an abstraction of

a city, which exists in our minds thanks to that representation called map. Otherwise,
the city would be only the streets we ride everyday, and without that abstraction we
would fail to have an overall image.

Considering their origin, thoughts can be sorted into rational or intuitive.

Rational thinking is any conscious intellectual activity that can be controlled and
shaped into ideas.
Intuition is any subconscious or unconscious intellectual activity occurring as sudden
thoughts in our conscience with different degrees of elaboration.

Science has not established how or when intuition switches to rationality, but our
thoughts are the result of the interaction of these two intellectual forces.

4. Rational Thinking and Intuition

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The empire of reason is considered to have formally started in Greek culture. The
Greek developed deductive reasoning, logics, geometry and mathematics in an
outstanding way and were the first to introduce the concept of science.

Much later, in the 16th c, Descartes developed systematic doubt, which in turn led to
systematic rationalism. This implied a great breakthrough in the West, which allowed
the organization of thinking and knowledge under new criteria.

Two hundred years later, in the early Industrial Age, the philosopher Immanuel Kant
merged empiric (intuitive) and rational (analytical) thinking. He postulated observation
and rational development on the basis of visualization as a method for knowledge
generation to later generate new knowledge in revising the already known. The West
had found a new way of thinking.

He also advanced that realized knowledge is undoubtedly rational. But its genesis is
dual, rather than rational or intuitive, originating from the two aspects that enable
knowledge development – experience and analysis.

Nowadays, over two hundred years later, it seems that Kant’s ideas did not thrive, as
thinking is molded and taught on the basis of Descartes’ ideas – a systematic and
meticulously rational order with disregard for the formal development of intuition and
creativity in the academic environment.

Still, intuition has continued to develop on its own in a disorganized and scarcely
academic way, laterally, to use De Bono’s words, but also thanks to academic
interest.

This situation is analogous to that of a professional tennis player – one arm bigger
than the other. But as a tennis player needs both arms to play, we need both aspects
of thinking to develop.

Recent studies (1) have found that intuition precedes reason, being activated first
and allowing a swift organization of incoming information.

This is not only the case with perceptions, but also with the symbolic field. The
reaction of our brain to words is intuitive in the first place; then comes the rational
decoding of written texts.

Apparently, intuition reacts first before any external stimulus and then comes reason
to organize information.

Furthermore, thinking can be convergent or divergent, focusing either on problem-

solving on the basis of the already known or on presenting completely new
scenarios.

Convergent thinking is closed, that is, it entails a limitation to new possibilities and
aims at obtaining a single answer for a problem. It is thinking rationally generated.
Divergent thinking is open, tends to produce the highest possible number of answers
to a problem and it represents a significant factor in creativity. One of the main

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features of divergent thinking is its lack of links with known patterns, which allows
ideas to flow freely finding unexplored paths.

Which are the edges or limits between conscious and unconscious thinking?

It becomes clear that reason and intuition are both necessary, and that they do not
work independently. Shifts from one intellectual state to the other are automatic and
unexplained.

In turn, there will always be more rational or more intuitive designers, but this cannot
and should not be the way to assess their “being professional.”

Professionalism will be achieved by integrating the two phases of human thinking at

the academic level. And this is not about getting caught up in mysticisms generally
closely associated with intuition. In short, restate the design method to incorporate all
human intellectual resources, without loosing what has been learned to date.

5. Critical Analysis and Creativity

At this stage of human knowledge, imposing one of the two aspects of thinking
mentioned as it has been the case until present would be wasting an opportunity.

We must define an integrated, superseding thinking model that is flexible and clear to
subsequently develop it as part of the design method. Organizing the creative
process and critical analysis in a synergetic way, generating a complementary and/or
cooperative relationship rather than competitive and/or conflicting between them will
allow us to replicate this relationship in the design method.

Moreover, we should establish the edge between these two thinking modalities,
attempting to determine the best opportunities to use each one. I consider both
divergent and convergent design methods, associated with intuition and rationality
respectively, to be equally no more than expressions of the designer's work. As such,
it is convenient to make use of either of them according to the project at hand.

Bottom line, the design method is a single one that affords different possibilities and
should be taught as such, so that students can experience it in all its phases finding
the modality that suits them best.

It is known that designers “create” at different moments of their projects. Some

establish their project-related ideas at the beginning and find information on an as
needed basis. Others need to take in knowledge before starting their outline. And
most designers are between these two extremes switching from setting out ideas
freely to technical knowledge and the other way around.

Little is known about creativity, what triggers it, and the way a creative act is born.

But we do know something about the process, such as the “no real time” moment
when creation is completely free and the result of analytical knowledge. Then new

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orders and criteria to visualize a situation are established. This moment is usually
preceded by an inactive stage.

Recent studies demonstrated that creativity is an asset shared by all human beings,
with about 90% of children born with a high creative ability. But, due to different
reasons, they lose it as they grow up.

Besides, creativity is connected with other abilities and thinking functions – curiosity,
creative imagination, and memory. We know these can be improved with training and
exercises, but the individual’s attitude is the main incentive.

Curiosity (2) is defined as a creative process maintaining and resolving conceptual

conflicts. These conflicts arise from the discrepancy between new external
information and our existent cognitive map. New solutions for this discrepancy are
driven by curiosity.

Memory is the ability to recall close or distant past experiences.

Imagination is a conscious mental process recalling ideas or images of objects,

events or processes that have never been actually experienced or perceived.

Memory is closely related to imagination. The Greek had claimed this and their
“suspicion” is supported by studies (3) involving subjects with amnesia and a partial
loss of their imaginative and creative abilities due to neurological damages in the
hippocampus, an area in their brains.

Creative processes in science and art are completely different. Design is halfway
through as it does not require complying with the hard demands of science, such as
hypothesis, stringent control systems, or accurate and verifiable results. But design is
not on the side of art, where the methodological process can be avoided, the
exchange with the exterior is defined by the artist, and his/her results should only
satisfy him/her.

Design follows accurate and clear guidelines about what should be projected.
Besides, methods vary and, on many occasions, results are agreed upon with the
client.

Which are the limits between analysis and creative process? In reflecting reason and
intuition, both intellectual tools are necessary and their mutual feedback ensures full
functioning.

It is generally accepted that intuition is closely connected with creativity and that
critical analysis is associated with reason, though not always, as in the most rigorous
analysis we always apply some intuition to approach it. Even in the freest project, we
instantly analyze in a non-controlled way everything we create.

We should strike a balance between the two feet we walk on in our becoming
professional, the intuitive foot and the rational foot.

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6. Women Think in a Different Way

Women joined the workforce and the world of higher education contributing a way
of thinking which is radically different from men’s. Apart from introducing new thinking
models and new ways to approach problems, they conceive aesthetics with a
completely different sensitivity.

These differences are of a biological and social nature. Neurological research (4)
demonstrated that men’s and women’s brains are not the same. In order to perform
certain intellectual tasks, they do not use the same areas of the brain, thought they
achieve the same level of performance.

These biological differences determine a significantly different way to structure

thinking in every aspect. Both genders have developed various availabilities,
providing the human being with different intellectual tools.

After so many years of male preponderance in science and philosophy, there has
been a formalization of intellectual processes dominated by men. There is no doubt
female thinking models are incorporated and are present in every level of social life
and human knowledge but, not being academically formalized, they are not clearly
identified and their rational and academic grasping is more difficult.

Greater gender equity will allow formalization of female thinking processes thus
generating a greater diversity of ways of thinking and intellectual abilities in the field
of knowledge.

7. Teaching Critical Analysis and Developing Creativity

Creative minds have always been known to survive any kind of bad training.

Anna Freud

A design method is taught to enable chronological order and critical analysis as a

basis for rational control of the project-related process. We offer students a
lighthouse in the darkness to guide them through their personal imaginary.

This method facilitates order, analysis of situations, development of concepts,

development of technical language and expressive means, and enhancement of
curiosity and creativity. This is a theoretic, practical and formal framework that leads
to build a great “rational scanner” to control creative development. But no academic
criteria are set about organizing the creative process as such.

Therefore, students think that the design method to generate ideas is the rational
process. This is partially true, but not fully. This is a confusing situation that the
academic environment is not helping to clarify and students are left with the task of
developing and stimulating their intuition and creativity.

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From a strictly rational point of view, what has been done until present is correct –
the socialized areas of designers’ imaginary were identified; the rest is kept in the
private field.

Design is learnt focusing on the individuality of the student and future designer, which
is the starting point to structure his/her design method. Combining their work with
academic guidelines and the support of good teachers, students build a “working
style” that becomes systematic and ripens until they can control it rationally.

Each designer creates their own aesthetic paths and finds creative triggers in
different sources. Diving into different oasis or hells, they design and create in so
many varied ways… How could we find a common method when something so
intimate is involved?

We cannot insist on a blind rational standpoint, but we cannot suggest an equally

confusing intuitive learning such as the “development of natural talent” either.

We should openly show our students what we do so that they understand what they
are doing, what is going on with them when they are learning to design, and what we
as trainers expect from them.

What if we talked about these creation moments from an academic point of view?

How much more would students learn from their experiences? What about us?

8. Conclusions

Summing up, little is known about our brain mechanisms, let alone how we create.

Then…

How are we supposed to put in order something we don’t know about?

Something we don’t know how it works.

Something we don’t know why or when it emerges or vanishes.

What we know for sure by now is that intuition is involved with hints. Over the last ten
years, countless books and articles have been written dealing with waking up and
enhancing creativity in various disciplines that require creative professionals. And
hints is all they offer.

Hints, suggestions, insinuations, femininity, speed seem to be the most visible

features of intuition and creativity. But how can we reflect them on a formal academic
method?

What will we be able to offer to future generations in 40 years’ time?

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We need to search, experiment, look, analyze, arrange, present hypothesis… in
short, we need research.
But we cannot perform studies on students, we should not and we cannot experiment
with them. So we are left with active or retired professionals.

This should be a study on the design methods used by professionals in their daily
work.

This research could result in new data, reassertion of accepted knowledge, and
dismissal of wrong beliefs.

As a hypothesis, I believe interaction between reason and intuition (the switching

between them) seems to be one of the doors of creation, empowering the creative
process. Likewise, we should observe which types of intellectual and/or emotional
switches (if existing) involving these two thinking phases are used by professionals.
We should also attempt to decode the sequence of moments and sensations, if
identifiable, preceding the creative explosion. Besides, we should pay special
attention to the information search processes, where the preliminary project is
intuitively shaped, and to how and why certain information is chosen over another in
that first moment.

I also believe consulting with and inviting philosophers, psychologists, and

neurologists (disciplines that study these topics) is important in order to expand our
knowledge.

This invitation should be conceived as an opportunity for free debate and exchange
of information. It would be ideal for this debate to result in an agreement on
methodologies and concepts to develop a larger scale research. If not, we could aim
at obtaining the necessary contributions to conduct research of a scientific nature in
order to ensure our findings are verifiable.

We would then redefine a design method allowing a dynamic approach and

facilitating students to develop their own method.

I am inviting ICSID authorities, interested academic institutions and independent

designers to start this research project.

Franco Schiaffino

Notes
(1) Dr. Lionel Naccache. INSERM
Proceedings of the National Academy of Science. 2005

(2) Lic. David Beswick.

An Introduction to the Study of Curiosity. Centre for Applied Educational Research, University of Melbourne. (A
presentation at St Hilda's College Senior Common Room, Fellows night, 10 May 2000)

(3) “Back to the future”.

Science, as breackthroug of the year 2007

(4) Dr. Lawrence Cahill.

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“His brain, her brain”
Scientific American, 292. 2005

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