Dear Terry and all,
Pieter Vermaas recently published a chapter in which he briefly addresses the philosophical status of Herbert Simon’s definition of design (Vermaas, 2014). In the chapter, Vermaas takes the position that definitions should be analyzed with regard to their aims. Accordingly, he identifies three types of definitions of design: essentialist definitions, lexical definitions, and stipulative definitions. I think that considering the stipulative type of definition may add something useful to the current discussion of definitions and to Terry’s project.
According to Vermaas (2014, pp. 59-60), if it is assumed that a definition singles out those practices that are essentially design practices, then it aims to say something metaphysical about reality, and then it is called an essentialist definition. If it is assumed that a definition singles out how design practices are identified in common or expert language, then it aimed at saying something about how people give meaning to the term design, and then it is called a lexical definition. If it is assumed that a definition demarcates design practices as part of a larger effort at analysing, say, engineering curricula or national economies, then its aim is usefulness to that analysis, and then it is called a stipulative definition.
One of Simon’s larger aims in the Science of the Artificial was to address the fragmentation of society into scientists and humanists. Consequently, I think that Simon’s characterization of design is usefully understood using something like Peter Galison’s metaphor of a “trading zone”, that is, as a means to make exchanges that cross disciplinary boundaries. Simon states that his characterization of design as a science of the artificial is meant to point out topics in the common core of knowledge in the training of any professional whose task is to solve problems not only those professionals called “designers”. Accordingly, following Vermaas’s typology of definitions, it makes sense to me to call Simon’s definition of design a stipulative definition. Furthermore, it follows then that demonstrating that Simon’s definition is not a valid definition in terms of its formal logical truth, probably misses the larger point that Simon was trying make. Rather, the more relevant critical question is to ask is whether defining design as “devis[ing] courses of action aimed at changing existing situations into preferred ones” is useful or not within Simon’s larger effort to establish a research programme to facilitate exchanges that cross the disciplinary boundary between science and art.
Best wishes,
Luke
Luke Feast, PhD | Postdoctoral Researcher in Design | Department of Design | School of Arts, Design and Architecture | Aalto University | Finland
Vermaas, P. E. (2014). Design Theories, Models and Their Testing: On the Scientific Status of Design Research. In A. Chakrabarti & L. T. M. Blessing (Eds.), An Anthology of Theories and Models of Design (pp. 47-66): Springer London.
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