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Dear Terry, I'll try to answer you challenge. "Like design and aesthetics, not only are they different entities, they do not have a necessary and sufficient relations. Hence in research terms, they are best considered different conceptual entities." Let me clarify my position. I agree that Aesthetics and Design are different conceptual entities, and I am fairly certain that no one has argued otherwise (I may be mistaken). Aesthetics is concerned with the study of Beauty; design is concerned — in part — with the conception of beautiful things. Regardless of how broad a definition of design we adopt, design is a discipline that participates in the conception and development of the artificial world, part of this development includes a concern with not making things uglier. What I tried to illustrate (using a metaphor) was the trouble with extracting beauty and treating it as an independent aspect of the whole design (thank you Eduardo for highlighting the importance of the relationship between whole and parts in design). Beauty is no more an added feature to a design as functionality. One most consider how these features (beauty, functionality, fit for purposeness, sustainability, usability, and so on) work together in a greater whole. Therefore, studying design most include an understanding of aesthetics; the importance of aesthetics for design then varies according to specific disciplinary concerns. Also "Finally, just as an aside, if beauty cannot be studied (your post re Parthenon, maternal love etc) then what the heck is the discipline of Aesthetics doing if it is ' is a branch of Philosophy concerned with the study of the principles behind the nature and appreciation of *beauty*'. Should it perhaps be closed down as irrelevant and wasting people's time?" I did not claim beauty cannot be studied, I stated that beauty cannot be extracted from things like an appendix. I hope my position is clearer, it's two posts for me, so back to reading. 'best, ----------------------------------------------------------------- PhD-Design mailing list <[log in to unmask]> Discussion of PhD studies and related research in Design Subscribe or Unsubscribe at https://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/phd-design -----------------------------------------------------------------