Dear Klaus and others,

"If we start of wrong we will end up wrong", Pradeep warns us in his 
last post!


In any theory building attempt, as that we currently are engaged in 
for the Design field, it is indeed capital to make as much clear as 
possble the fundamental assumptions, and fundamental as well to have 
clearly defined concepts and conceptual vehicles, i.e. words or any 
other semantic (epistemic?) structures we use.

For my part, the same way I never believed that designing should 
occur out idle, contemplative imagination, I tend to think that 
designing should neither start with cognition, particularly not with 
that kind of institutionalized cognition named "scientific", whether 
of the "hard" or of the "soft" kind. 

Neither do I conceive the designing activity, ontologically, as a 
process starting with "faith" nor with "logic". Rather, to me, the 
designing activity starts with a human mental and physical attitude 
configurated according to some kind of "inner drives" (the American 
Philosopher, James K. Feibleman, enumerates 6 ontological human 
drives: 3 basic and 3 secondary) (1). These drives result from a 
certain level of sensual (inner and/or external) "irritability" (2) 
of the human physical structure by whatever occurs around. In 
Fuller's terminology (3), the term conveys our human (i.e. relatively 
limited) tunability ability into the surrounding physical Universe in 
which we all are immersed ...from the cradle to ...

Then human etologists remind us that the next stage is a certain kind 
of pleasure ("aesthetica"?), pain, or indifference, that one 
experiences, and for which we search some reasoned comprehension 
("perceptio"?). This is done by the means of logical (codified 
reasoning), by customary (cultural), by experiential references, or 
simply by intuition. It could also be done through any combination of 
these various means. 

We are then compelled, as a third stage, upon our own intuitive 
initiative or through someone else "feeling" (reward or fee, 
eventually!), to act upon the source and the effects of the 
irritability. Either we devise means to enhance it and get it closer 
with a view, thus, to intensify the pleasure it procures. Or, we 
develop strategies and means to suppress it and move it away because 
its effects are somehow painful. 

In certain circumstances, knowingly or unknowingly, we may also 
engage into a process of elaborating means to inflict direct or 
indirect pain to others. And a third occurrence is that the 
irritability and its source are simply ignored or made to be ignored. 
It is at this stage that occurs what I call "empathy" (4), an 
indispensable quality for any humanly, purposeful, intervention in 
the world, either for self benefit or for others betterment (ethics 
and morals?). 

To me, empathy (outward oriented attitude for action for self and/or 
others benefit), prior to cognition (eventual inward cogitations, at 
certain subsequent moments along the desinging process), is the core 
designing attitude, exclusively human, at the ontological level. 
Meaning here prior to but also expanding through social (training, 
contractual and practice ideological) professionalization.

François-X. N.I. NSENGA
Montréal


REFERENCES:

(1) James K. Feibleman: Mankind behaving: Human Needs and Material 
Culture. Charles C. Thomas Publisher, Springfield, ILL., 1963.

(2) The term vonveys Charles Léopold Mayer's central theme in: La 
sensation crée la vie. Librairie Marcel Rivière et Cie., Paris, 1960. 
Deuxième édition. Revue et augmentée.

(3) Richard Buckminster Fuller: Synergetics 1 & 2. Explorations in 
the Geometry of Thinking. In collaboration with J.E. Applewhite. 
McMillan Publishing Co. Inc., New York,, 1982, 1983.

(4) In Webster New Collegiate Dictonary (1980 Edition): 

1. The imaginative projection of a subjective state into an object so 
that the object appears to be infused with it. 

2. The capacity for participation in another's feelings or ideas.