The Production of Unprecedented Events

Abstract

What is primary in the production of new knowledge: new concepts or unprecedented events (surprising observations)? Often, when we talk about research, the focus would appear to be on the production and testing of concepts. Induction relies on observations, but its purpose is seen as being to arrive at new concepts, deductions and propositions, which when confirmed in empirical test provide grounds for belief. Reflective thought about research has tended to focus on the nature of confirmation rather than discovery, the latter being generally accepted as inaccessible to rational analysis. However, confirmation relies on discovery and whilst some new idea might come about through the rational analysis of existing concepts, discovery tends to arise in inductions stimulated by the event of surprising or unprecedented observations. Given the suggested significance of unprecedented events in the production of new knowledge and understanding, can we construct environments in which they can be made to happen, rather than merely waiting until we happen upon them? I will refer, in my talk, to current thinking in which experimental systems in science are conceived in this way, but will focus attention on how creative material practices, such as art and design, can also be understood as generators of unprecedented events.