Per Galle wrote earlier today that "I'm not going to bore you with my
favourite philosophical problems about design (I'd love to do so some other
time, but let's keep our focus for now)."
Actually, Per, I would like very much to hear what your favorite
philosophical problems about design are, mostly because I'm honestly never
quite sure what exactly people mean when they say "philosophy of design" or
"design philosophy," and how either/both might differ from or coincide with
what I think of as "design theory." If there were to be a course in the UCI
curriculum on design philosophy, what would you want it to look like?
Because I gather from the curricular outline on p. 74 of the UCI proposal
that a quite a few of the courses deal fairly explicitly with what appear to
be philosophical/theoretical concerns (the course titles I noted are "Design
Studies: Theory", "Culture and Design", "Environmental Issues and
Sustainability", "User-Centered Design", "Design and Perception", "Social
Aspects of Design", "Designing for Change", and "Professional Practice,
Management and Ethics").
I would also be interested to hear from the proposal's authors what sorts of
persons they envision teaching these courses. Would "Design and Perception"
be taught by a designer or a psychologist? Would "Social Aspects of Design"
be taught by a sociologist or a designer or a design historian or an
anthropologist? Would "Professional Practice, Management and Ethics" be
taught by a designer or a philosopher or a management professor? Or would
some of these courses be team-taught? I ask because these courses do beg the
nitty-gritty question of staffing, and I have a feeling that what *I* think
would constitute an appropriate syllabus for, say, "Social Aspects of
Design," would differ dramatically from what a designer or a sociologist or
a philosopher would deem appropriate for a course with that title.
Carma R. Gorman, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor of Art History
Southern Illinois University at Carbondale
School of Art and Design, mail code 4301
Carbondale, IL 62901
United States of America
voicemail: 618-453-8634
fax: 618-453-7710
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