Donald Schön, Herbert Simon and The Sciences of the Artificial

In this paper, I examine Schön's criticism of Herbert Simon's instrumentalist theory of design and conclude that Schön's evaluation of Simon's theory of design, based on the first edition of The Sciences of the Artificial, overlooks many open-ended constructivist trajectories. By exploring later editions of The Sciences of the Artificial, the hope is to correct the misconception that Simon's substantive theory of design had very little to contribute to research studies in designerly ways of knowing.