Pragmatism is the philosophy underlying the science of Actor-Network Theory and the technology of User Experience. Design Thinking defines the scope of application of User Experience to the entire realm of wicked problems.
As chaos theory has shown that most apparent linear equations are only approximate descriptions of non-linear processes, I’m certain that someday we will recognize that all human problems that appear “tame” are only approximate comprehensions of wicked problems.
Armed with an economic way of thinking, I’ve never been able to see any value in (or a need for) ANT — perhaps you can enlighten me as to what it adds.
I’m also a huge Anti-fan of the term User Experience, as a ‘user’ is by definition the subject of an object, when the perspective needed is the reverse. As well, experiences are bigger than the entities involved in them, so to single out one entity is not relevant. A more relevant terminology is “Experience Design”.
For me, the relevant answers are not in ‘chaos theory’ — which is only half of the paradox, but in ‘complexity theory’ — which embraces the paradox of chaos and order. Not to say that there aren’t some brilliant thinkers in that realm who laid the groundwork for ‘complexity theory’ to emerge.
All problems are wicked — we just tend to (as would be necessary) simplify them enough to solve a portion of the problem. I, on the other hand, am often blinded by the obvious larger considerations and have trouble focusing on the ‘good enough for now’ solutions (particularly when they cost a lot and will take a lot of time to create).