Gestaltungswissenschaft

Let’s digress

Even just right at the start of this, I already have to stray into a digression. Just a short one though, for I am not qualified to write about this topic for any longer than strictly necessary and also because that aforementioned topic is the one of etymology and thus not inherently a good fit for this critique. I do, however, believe, this one little note on it is essential for our text and, maybe even more so, for our context.

The meagre qualifications I can put forth are, firstly, the fact that I dabbled into the study of Philology for a year before giving it up for the benefit of Informatics and, secondly, that I am native in two languages – those two being English and German. As such – and I assume polyglot or not, this might be true for many people dealing with multiple languages frequently – I often times find myself longing for a way to express in language A the meaning language B so elegantly conveys through one single word.

Whenever these situations arise, I get this feeling of inadequacy, like a child unable to express how they feel about something, this tension of having something to say but not the means to do so.

More often than not, it is a German word I'm struggling to translate in its whole to English. In my one year of studying Philology, I was taught that this is to do with the history of these two languages. While English, as a Lingua Franca, is rather contextual and functional (maybe for trades, deals, flexibility) and picks up influences where it can, German, as a language that was rather locked–in (of course still with influences like French and Latin) is rather precise and devised to (or rather evolved? made out to?) be exact. Furthermore, German is heavily influenced by Philosophy and Psychology – Kant, Hegel, Heidegger, Nietzsche, Freud and friends formed the language, its meaning, and use. ¹ Thus, in my experience, English lends itself to wordplay, as meaning oftentimes is rather contextual, one word might mean a hundred entirely different things, depending on context, whereas German has hardly any wiggle-room and one word may describe one thing in a way where you would need a hundred different words to do so in English.

Why digress?

The reason for this digression is the word "Gestaltungswissenschaft". For many of the texts referenced here discuss whether Informatics in fact is or should be viewed as a "Gestaltungswissenschaft". Hidden within this question, at least to me, are many more issues discussed in the academic world of Informatics and ignored in the non-academic one (and thus even more discussed in the former).

Lost in translation, I believe, may be answers to many of those questions, as well as reasons for the fact they aren't being discussed in other sectors of our field.

However, without getting ahead of myself; the go-to translation for "Gestaltungswissenschaft", popping up in multiple sources referenced here, seems to be "Design Science". Now that's tension, this makes me feel wholly inadequate because it's not the same, not even close.

"Gestaltungswissenschaft" being a compound noun, implies the field described as a "Gestaltungswissenschaft" is a science which executes the act of "Gestaltung".

Its respective verb is "gestalten", which in turn, could be defined as the process of giving something its "Gestalt". Having said that, we can trace the origins of the word "Gestalt", as this is where it gets interesting.

gistalt

Gestalt can be traced back to the Old High German (the earliest stage of German ~750-1050) word "gistalt", the preterite (in the case of English and German, and for the simplicity of this digression simply "past tense") of "stellan". This could be translated as "place", thus, "gistalt" would be "placed".

However, "placed", in German, would rather be "platziert". In turn, "stellan", which is also the origin of the modern German word “stellen” and more common “hinstellen” implies "put down" (”hin” being a separable prefix meaning a movement away from the speaker, “kannst du das Paket hier hinstellen?” → “Could you put down the parcel there?”).

Which, in English, is a nice example for what I meant when I said a hundred possible meanings depending on context. In English "put down" could mean making somebody feel inadequate (or stupid, unimportant ...),

or killing an animal due to illness or injury,

or putting down a rebellion, coup or riot by force.

Also, "the hammer came down" or "put the hammer down" could mean either, in an idiomatic sense, that a decision was made by the powers that be or to accelerate very fast in a car.
There are more possible meanings, of course, but mentioning one last one – "put down" can simply mean to stop holding something.

That last translation probably is the closest one for "stellan" and in modern German “(hin)stellen” – simply to stop holding something.

gestalt

From "gistalt" (preterite of "stellan" and thus "put down") something interesting happened. In Middle High German (the German of the High Middle Ages ~1050-1350) the word morphed into "gestalt" (among other things through a process called "Rückumlauf" that I am not adequately equipped to explain here) and was then also used as an adjective.

This can be observed in Schiller's use of it: "schöngestalte Glieder" which could roughly be translated as "beautifully formed limbs" ("schön" being beautiful, thus "schöngestalte" being an adjective, and "Glieder" being limbs)².

However, "gestalt" was more than just a description for people and their limbs, as can be seen, e.g., in the sentence „waʒ im wêre gestalt“ by Albrecht von Halberstadt³, which means "that which was his fate". Thus, adding a sense of a temporal character to the word. Something similar occurs in its Middle High German use, where it was, among the aforementioned examples, also used as "cause". That is "cause" as in "the cause of something".

Another use of the word, also found in Middle High German, is that of "alignment" or "direction", which, again, makes for an abstract connotation of the word. An example of this can be found in "daʒ (ir frûntschaft) zu brôdekeide niht was geneiget noch gestalt"⁴, meaning something like "that their friendship was neither inclined nor shaped towards discord".

As a last example of this, consider "so gestallter sachen nach"⁵ (the spelling as "gestallt" or "gestalt" varies from source to source), which translates (roughly) to "under these circumstances" and was heavily used in legal speak of the times.

spiritual intermezzo

As the evolution of the word continues, and before we come to today's meaning, a short intermezzo around 1600: Paul Fleming uses the word like this: "ein geist-gestalter mensch, ein mensch-gestalter geist"⁶, meaning "a human who shapes the spirit" (as in somebody that influences or moulds the spiritual or intellectual world) and "a spirit that shapes humanity" (as in a spirit or force influencing mankind). Likewise, edging in on today, the word also, towards the beginning of the twentieth century, found its way into psychology, with Gestalt psychology becoming a school of psychology dealing with the perception of information, context and famously the concept of the whole being greater as the sum of its parts.

Gestaltungswissenschaft

Now for the present. How can "Gestaltungswissenschaft" be translated?
It can't.

"Gestalten" in today's use, implies a sense of intentionally shaping/designing something, be it something in the future or present, be it artistic or cultural, societal or rather abstract and metaphorical. It also carries a notion of responsibility for the future, which is why it is often used in political contexts. Furthermore, it also evokes a sense of a bigger concept. One can "gestalten" a concept, or, more so to this point, "gestalten" a room concept, implying the feeling, sense and bigger-picture of how a room looks, is laid out or feels.

One can even "gestalten" the world, e.g., in an activist sense.

In other words, the word is creative, it is form-giving, shaping, steering, influencing, it carries responsibility and respect for its subject.⁸

With which we can take a look at "Gestaltungswissenschaft".

A "Gestaltungswissenschaft" is a scientific field that does all this.

One where not only the decisions made influence the world but also the way of thinking about it, talking about it and going about it influences humans, societies and, again, the bigger picture of things in general.

It is also, in that very sense, a science where the people in it are implied to treat its subject and the responsibility coming with it, with the utmost respect and sensibility, as they are aware of its shaping, steering and form-giving nature.⁷

As for the question, whether Informatics is such a "Gestaltungswissenschaft" – I believe it is.
I also believe this is lost in translation, when it comes to
Informatics Education.

¹ Just think about how you can stumble across terms like Bildung or Zeitgeist in not just academic English writing. There seems to be a precision in these terms, that a discipline such as computing with it’s need for clearly defined things should appreciate.

² Friedrich Schiller: Das Eleusische Fest, 1798

³ Albrecht von Halberstadt: https://www.dwds.de/wb/dwb/gestalt

⁴ Max Rieger (Hg.): Das Leben der heiligen Elisabeth vom Verfasser der Erlösung, 1868

⁵ Wieland d.ä.: Kleine Chronik des königreichs Tatojaba, 1777

⁶ Hans Friedrich von Fleming: Der vollkommene teutsche Jäger, 1719

⁷ With this comes a certain level of care informatics scholars and practitioners have to practice. Instead of implementation and innovation, informatics needs attentiveness, responsibility, plurality, trust and respect.

⁸ Again, in other words: Gestaltungswissenschaft as a practice of composing: “it also requires the ability to fit together ideas, materials, technologies, timings, situations, people and cultures.“ [50, p. 162]