摘要：Integration of many fields of human endeavor including art and design into academic system is not atall surprising in our modern world that continues to modernize itself in the quest for ever increasing welfare ofhumanity. The backbone of modern welfare is unmistakably techno-scientific academic research, explainingcurrent expansion of its ‘standardized’ paradigm, regulation and infrastructure without exception into the fieldof art and design. This is where the problem precisely arises, since their own nature, art and design as ‘creative’fields, are incompatible with scientific paradigm which emphasizes a uniform reproducibility of researchfindings. ‘The heart of the arts’, in contrast, is its singularities. The industry actually has recognized thedifference by assigning ‘patents’ to technological invention and ‘copyright’ to singular artworks. The question isthen how to incorporate such creatively plural fields into uniform academic research system. Fortunately withinthe past 20 years, there were developments within international art and design academia that came up with akeystone principle called practice-based research. It relies upon philosophical underpinnings of phenomenologyand hermeneutics which has been critically acclaimed in showing inadequacies of positivistic (natural sciencebased)paradigm in understanding cultural phenomena exemplified by art and design. It is the intention of thisarticle to briefly explain this new principle and its philosophical underpinnings in order to let us appreciate itspositive contribution for our understanding of art and design. This understanding in turn would allow us tocultivate those creative fields within academic context in a more appropriate way
关键词：academic research; positivistic paradigm; the paradigm of hermeneutics/phenomenology; art and;design; practice-based research
