Although the title of this book promised a discussion of t he method, it is over 85 percent finished and only token mention has been made of this important concept. The break to consider the compelling and incoherent nature of the sota we each use to structure our world finished, we must now return to the trail to rectify this slight and tease a statement of method from the background we have so carefully prepared. This is the last objective of Part IV.

Method, like man, like engineer, and like American engineer, is a fuzzy subset chosen from the overall sota. As with all fuzzy sets the exact heuristics it contains depend on the person doing the partitioning and are liable to change in time. As I now seek method, I return to the subset that I have found compelling since the spring of 1965.

As mentioned when we first encountered the word method back when our only concern was the engineering method, method is thought to have first appeared in the dialogue Phaedrus by Plato and to have come from the two Greek roots meaning "along" and "way." ^[*] Therefore, method refers to the series of steps that are taken along the way to a given end. It tells what you must do to achieve a specific goal.

1. I want to do engineering design; I seek the method of the engineer.

   • Do I want change?

   • Do I want the best...