Battaglie epistemologiche. Il professionista riflessivo e la genealogia americana del pensiero progettuale

Donald Schön’s 1983 seminal work, The Reflective Practitioner, initiated a profound inquiry into the epistemological structure of design thought by adopting a "bottom-up" logic rooted in the direct observation of professional practice. This text explores how Schön challenges the traditional "technical rationality" of the positivist model, which erroneously views professional activity as a mere linear application of theoretical knowledge to technical problems. Instead, Schön proposes the concept of reflection-in-action, describing it as a tacit, circular, and self-correcting cognitive process that occurs simultaneously with the act of designing. The philosophical genealogy of this approach is deeply anchored in American Pragmatism, drawing specifically from John Dewey’s "Theory of Inquiry," where the practitioner is an integral part of a problematic situation. Within this framework, the logic of abduction — as formalized by Charles Sanders Peirce — emerges as the most effective mode for advancing knowledge, as it focuses on constructing hypotheses to navigate unique and uncertain conditions. This shift in perspective reconfigures the identity of the architect, moving away from the role of a mere technician toward that of an intellectual agent and a producer of new knowledge. Crucially, the design studio is identified as the primary pedagogical prototype for fostering this reflective practice. The paper situates the laboratory tradition — from the Renaissance *botteghe* and the Bauhaus to the contemporary studio — within a lineage of "deviant traditions" that resisted the constraints of positivism. By emphasizing operational research, this model seeks to bridge the enduring divide between academic speculation and professional application. Ultimately, the essay argues that architecture’s hybrid nature, suspended between science and art, provides a radical paradigm for rethinking the epistemological foundations of various other disciplines.