1.1 Defining âDesignâ
Before we examine some potential definitions of âdesign,â we should first discuss the kind of definition we are seeking. When philosophers attempt to understand a concept, they typically look for a particular sort of definition, which we can call simply a âphilosophical definition.â2 This consists of a set of conditions that are individually necessary, and jointly sufficient, for being an instance of the concept. A condition that is necessary for being an instance of a concept specifies possession of a feature that any instance of the concept must have. For instance, âbeing unmarriedâ is a necessary condition for the concept âbachelorâ since to be a bachelor something must be, as a matter of necessity, unmarried. A condition or set of conditions is sufficient for being an instance of a concept when anything that satisfies it must be, as a matter of necessity, an instance of the concept. Thus, the conditions âunmarried,â âadult humanâ and âmaleâ are together jointly sufficient for the concept âbachelor,â since anything that satisfies these conditions has, of necessity, to be a bachelor. A definition of a concept that specifies a set of conditions that are individually necessary, and jointly sufficient, for being an instance of that concept has the special property of picking out all and only the instances of that concept. In doing so, it provides us with the âessenceâ of the concept, allowing us to understand it in a particularly satisfying way. Take, for example, the definition of âbachelorâ as an unmarried adult male human being. This tells us precisely what bachelorhood consists in, and allows us to understand why any given thing is a bachelor or not one.
In seeking a definition of âdesign,â perhaps the most instinctive thing to do is simply look in the dictionary. But dictionary definitions rarely measure up as definitions in the philosophical sense we have outlined. Take, as an example, the concept of art. We recognize instances of this concept easily enough: performances by symphony orchestras, the paintings of Picasso, the novels of James Joyce, and so on. And we can distinguish these instances of art from things that are not art, such as mailboxes, desks and grocery lists. The Oxford English Dictionary defines âthe Artsâ as âthe various branches of creative activity concerned with the production of imaginative designs, sounds, or ideas.â This definition is helpful in pointing us in the right direction, but it doesn't capture the essence of the concept. This is because, while the production of imaginative designs, sounds or ideas may be necessary for engaging in the arts, it clearly isn't sufficient: a politician with an imaginative idea for reforming the city budget, or an engineer who creates a new cooling system for a factory, is not engaging in the arts.
The dictionary tries to reinforce its definition by attaching to it a list of examples: âpainting, music, and writing.â This list is meant to suggest the distinction that we need here, since it does not include activities such as legislating, accounting and engineering. However, the list, and the definition more generally, offers us no basis for this distinction. Surely there is some reason why the imaginative productions of symphonic music are art, and those of accounting are not, but the dictionary definition fails to tell us what this could be. Thus, since it fails to specify a set of conditions that are individually necessary and jointly sufficient for being a work of art â that is, an essence â the dictionary definition does not allow us to fully understand the nature of art in the way a philosophical investigation of it would demand. For these reasons, philosophers interested in understanding the nature of art must move beyond dictionary definitions and work out philosophical definitions of the concept (for an overview of efforts in this area, see Stecker 2003). If, then, we seek to understand the nature of design, this is the project we must also undertake.
The search for philosophical definitions, or âconceptual analysis,â as philosophers sometimes call it, is by no means uncontroversial.3 Some philosophers have been skeptical that such definitions can be found, and this skepticism has been influential in thinking about design (see, e.g., Walker 1989). The philosopher Jane Forsey, for example, rejects the possibility of a philosophical definition, or essence, for design, on the grounds that design is a phenomenon that evolves historically. In her view, this leads to two undesirable consequences. First, any philosophical definition is bound to fail once the phenomenon changes, as it inevitably will. Second, once the definition faces these inevitable counterinstances, the philosopher can only ignore them, âunconcerned with the objects that may then fall by the wayside of his theoretical ambitionâ (2013, 13).
However, both of Forsey's points are over-stated. The fact that a phenomenon changes does not entail that it changes its essential properties: cars are faster than they were 80 years ago, but this would hardly be a reason to rethink our definition of âautomobile.â Second, a philosopher who offers a philosophical definition for some phenomenon need not cling to it no matter what happens in the world around him: he may simply determine that the old concept is no longer in use, and offer a philosophical definition of the new one in play. In short, there is nothing in the historical nature of design to rule out philosophical definition.4
With this in mind, let us examine some definitions of design that have been offered by theorists writing on the subject. One important group of definitions is based on the idea that everything we do is design. The design theorist Victor Papanek, for example, wrote, âAll men are designers. All that we do, almost all the time, is designâ (Papanek 1971, 23; see also Nelson and Stolterman 2012). Design is, in his view, âthe primary underlying matrix of life,â and includes not only the production of machines, buildings and so on, but even mundane actions such as cleaning your desk drawer and baking a pie. In a similar vein, Henry Petroski says, âDesigned things are the means by which we achieve desired endsâ (Petroski 2006, 48). This definition includes even natural things that are appropriated by humans, with little or no modification, for use in pursuing some aim. A shell used to scoop water for drinking, for example, counts as a designed object by Petroski's lights. As he puts it, âmere selection for a purpose made [it] designed.â On these definitions, designing is understood as nothing more than using things to achieve our aims.5
As philosophical definitions, however, these accounts are clearly problematic. Of course, there are some similarities between an everyday process like baking a pie and the process that produced the iPod, the Juicy Salif and the Eames chair. On the other hand, there are also differences, and we do distinguish between the two: it would be strange to call someone who baked a pie a âdesigner,â for example. As a matter of fact, in our everyday thinking we distinguish design from all sorts of other activities in which we use things to achieve our aims: art, science, sports, war, as well as mundane activities such as cleaning and using sticks to draw in the sand. Given that we do make this distinction, we would like to understand the basis for it. But definitions such as âDesign is using things to achieve our endsâ can offer us no such understanding, since they simply ignore the distinction altogether (Love 2002). Put in more philosophical terms, the problem is that using things to achieve our aims is not sufficient for design.6
This raises an interesting question: Why are theorists drawn to this definition of âdesignâ when it seems clearly too broad in scope? One factor here, which I mentioned earlier, is the multiplicity of meaning inherent in the word âdesign.â The word has existed in English for over 500 years, and The Oxford English Dictionary lists 16 differing definitions for the English verb alone. One of these is a sense of the word in which âto designâ means simply âto intend,â as in âWhen I put up the fence, my design was to give us some privacy.â7 In offering their definitions, theorists like Papanek and Petroski are perhaps drawing on this recognized usage. However, as The Oxford English Dictionary indicates, and as my rather stilted example shows, this use of the word is now practically dead: people no longer commonly use âdesignâ in this very broad way (in the example above, most people would probably say simply âI wanted to give us some privacyâ).
In addition to confusion over different senses of the word âdesign,â however, there may be something else afoot in the proposal of these definitions. One motivation for saying that design is a part of âall that we do, almost all the time,â is that this might be seen as a way to emphasize the importance of design. Instead of something done far away, by a small group of specialists, having remote and uncertain effects, these definitions portray design as something all around us. It may then be inferred, from this fact about design, that it has important consequences for all of us and we should pay greater attention to it.
Perhaps this kind of argument is what attracts some theorists to such broad definitions. Certainly, much contemporary writing on design has a polemical quality, explicitly urging closer attention to design. However, as a strategy for achieving this end, the above argument is misguided. Say that, as this argument would have it, design is present in every human action. The fact is that much of what we do is relatively uninteresting and not worthy of serious attention or analysis. To return to some of the previously mentioned examples, cleaning out your desk or using a stick to draw a map in the dirt are not activities that seem to possess any particular significance or call for any special attention. Connecting design to these activities is therefore unlikely to lead to a greater interest in, or regard for, the activity of design (Walker 1989).
If, then, âdesign,â a...