Summary and Conclusions

We have seen that a first step in defining IDT would be to identify its central concern. Although some see science, design, or technology as central, IDT's actual center has always been to help learners. Because the aspiration to help people is by definition ethical, it follows that the central concern of IDT is ethical. Science, design, and technology are therefore means to an ethical end. They serve praxis , or practical action, and no longer belong only to the episteme of science, the poiesis of design, or the episteme/poiesis hybrid of modern technology.

Using Aristotle's categories of the rational intellect, the principled differences among theoresis, poiesis, and praxis were highlighted. The properties of praxis were then shown to be the properties of IDT. The chief virtue of praxis and therefore of IDT is phronesis, or practical wisdom. As a consequence, evaluative choice, sound judgment, and expert decision-making become topics of paramount interest.

Is the Aristotelian categorization the only acceptable approach to defining the differences among science, design, technology, and ethics? The answer is, “No.” Just as there is more than one way to show that the planets revolve around the sun, there are manifold ways to show that the ethical aspiration is at the center of IDT. For example, Emmanuel Levinas's hypostasis of the instant shows that being-for-the-other is not only central, it also fundamental, i.e., it founds, or makes real, both being and time (Inouye, 2003).

Is IDT an art (poiesis) or a science (theoresis) ? It is neither. Like medicine, law, and psychotherapy, it is a practice (praxis) whose central concern is to help people. As in the other helping professions, art (poiesis), science ( theoresis ), and modern technology (a poiesis/theoresis hybrid), serve as means to ethical ends. How optimally to help people learn is both the highest good and the reason for existing of IDT.

If providing help to learners is the ultimate end of IDT, does it lessen the importance of science, design, and technology? No, t he real importance to IDT of science, design, and technology can only be enhanced when they are seen as means to more important human ends, for as prestigious, as interesting, and as powerful as they might be, they do not by themselves have the teleological gravity, or centripetal attraction, necessary to hold the many parts of IDT together. Disciplines and their professions should be defined in terms of their enduring ends, not their more fleeting, evanescent, and contextually determined means.

How should we define IDT? What is the meaning of our discipline and profession? If this article helps the IDT community to think anew about these questions, then our purpose in writing this invited article will have been fulfilled. We thank the editor, editorial board, and reviewers of the IDT Record for providing this forum for the definition, advancement, and further elaboration of our field.