Re: The Last Word
read this first:
With that in mind, read this musing of mine.
[musing]
Designers:
Broadly speaking
- practical (or applied) philosophers
- counterbalance to engineers.
Just as engineers work within a context of physics (archaically natural philosophy) & mathematics, a designer works within the context of philosophy (political philosophy, aesthetics, philosophy of language, logic). The framework for this philosophical context of reality for designers is precisely is that of the social-cultural norms of community (aka civilisation) as it integrates with the contextual reality of engineers.
Where-as engineers have the contextual reality of physics & maths. Both of these contextual realities of engineers and designers (and scientists and philosophers) are human abstractions of substantial reality AS-IT-IS. Both of these spheres of context should be handmaidens to each other, and wherein they do, greatness is more likely to be achieved, for the betterment of civilisation, and thus engineering can be elevated to art.
edit/addendum:
As an example, take the Roman roads and the Roman aqueducts, as a collaboration between designers and engineers.
Another example is the printing press. An engineer built it because the physicist and mathematician told him it was possible. However it was the designer (professional typographer, today desktop publisher) who made that invention useful (and usable) for society (advancing civilisation). The output of the printing press being typographically produced books.
Designers are the arbiters (and intercede) between the realms of engineering and society (anthropology may come into this, ethnography definitely). In a sense, designers commission engineers to build things for the advancement of civilisation.
edit 2/addendum 2:
In a very real sense, civilisation is held within the mind of the people within that civilisation. This is achieved by the creation of the two contexts of reality, that of science & mathematics (aka for the engineers) and philosophy (context for the designers). As stated above, these two are abstractions (and perceptions) of substantial reality—what ACTUALLY-IS.
[/musing]
Comment?
