The 4 Humors of Design Thinking
We need to cultivate 4 different ways of knowing, and the ability to switch between them seemlessly as needed. This is rather like the "four humors" theory in medieval medicine, hence the 4 Humors of Design Thinking.
- epistêmê – abstract, conceptual, generalizations;
- téchnê – practical know-how;
- phronesis – wisdom underpinned by morality;
- mètis – tactical, adaptive, context-sensitive.
Consider this case from ordinary problem solving, of not combining the forms of knowledge well:
- I've got a damaged bolt in the terminal on my motorcycle battery, and I now cannot undo it.
- My technical knowledge (téchnê) is poor, and I don't really understand the process needed to use the tools I have.
- So I end up finding a trick to get it out, I use a different tool to grind ridges into the head of the bolt and then a hammer and chisel loosens it (mètis).
- Hooray! It's out. But then I realise that in hammering the battery I might have damaged it. I should have thought about the whole problem carefully first, using my abstract knowledge of the physics of batteries (epistêmê), and applying some wisdom to planning my approach (phronesis).