by Daniel Martin Feige
Since its genesis in the spirit of industrialisation, design has been understood less as a self-sufficient aesthetic practice and more as work on the social question: at the Bauhaus and later in Ulm, it was understood as a means of restructuring society in the spirit of designing everyday objects. In recent years, philosophical aesthetics has begun to focus intensively on design not only because it deals with aesthetic objects that, unlike works of art, serve tangible practical purposes. Rather, it is also interested in design because in it the aesthetic and the ethical are intersected in a different and more direct way than in art. The conventional design concept of classical functionalism, which understands design objects as moulded functions in the sense of the purposes for which they are there, must be distinguished from the delimited concept of design that has been increasingly advocated in design theory in recent years: In social design, objects are no longer understood as objects, but rather the social itself is understood as something that is shaped and produced by design decisions. Be it that the residents of a neighbourhood consult with the architects on the design and use of spaces - be it that resource-saving and sustainable power supply solutions are developed for particular contexts with the involvement of those who are affected by them: This is based on a new and different understanding of design processes than classical functionalism.
The following considerations aim to reject an overly optimistic view of design. This will be done both in the course of a sketch of the functionalist concept of design and in the context of a sketch of social design. Overall, a critical theory of design begins where it is recognised that design practices are based on social negotiation processes that can no longer be understood as designable. The thesis is that if the classical concept of design does not get a grip on the normative dimension of design, all friction is lost in social design and it threatens to tip over into a mere social technology. Thinking about what constitutively fails in design practices would also be a first step towards a properly understood philosophy of design.
The dialectic of the relationship between ends and means in the functionalist concept of design
The classic concept of design, which has fallen into disrepute in large parts of design theory today, states that the form of the object must follow from its function. What remains incomprehensible about this slogan is the relationship of inference: even if one ascribes actual functions to design objects (such as the uncontroversial thesis that chairs are for sitting on), nothing follows from the function itself. Only the design process, and that is the uncertain and open development of the form of the object, clarifies its function at all. Of course, it is not the case that a designer wants to create a chair and accidentally ends up with a drive for an aeroplane. But what it means that a chair is there to sit on, and how the chair fulfils its purpose, is not already clear before the design object itself is created.
These remarks emphasise the aesthetic potential of design (namely that its formal inventions simultaneously redefine the function of its objects) and also articulate the idea that in design, the human world itself becomes thematic in its designability. What the functionalist concept of design does not succeed in doing, however, is to think together the means and the ends of the objects. The purposes themselves do not appear to be negotiable in design, even if they are given a new contour in and through the moulding process. This is shown by the fact that we can understand the saying that a weapon is a good (and well-designed) weapon without denying that weapons are monstrous objects under many descriptions. In other words, the judgement of the quality of design and the judgement of what the object in question is for necessarily fall apart in the functionalist understanding of design. Judging a design object qua design object thus means something other than judging the purposes it serves and gives contour to.
The dialectic of the social in social design
The neutrality of means and ends is contested by the latest developments under the heading of social design. They have recognised that, in view of pressing social problems, it is an objection to design if it cannot be questioned intrinsically with regard to the ends themselves. In social design, it is not only the concept of design that is greatly expanded: Not objects, but institutions, infrastructures, practices and even the social itself are understood as something that is always already designed and thus also accessible to re-design. While the functionalist concept of design develops a dialectic between means and ends in such a way that ends and means do not come together in a necessary unity, social design is nevertheless characterised by a different, no less problematic dialectic: the dialectic of the social as a process and the social as the purpose of social design.
The social appears in social design in two different places and takes on a different meaning in each case: on the one hand, the term "social" in social design refers to a procedural term (i.e. the way of producing, the process, the form), and on the other hand to a normative term (i.e. the positively determined goal of what is to be created; the content at which the whole is aimed). The problem is this: On a purely procedural level, it is by no means the case that we are already dealing here with emancipatory practices themselves. As the rise of right-wing populism in Europe shows, it is not the case that what those who participate in the process want is good per se. At the procedural level, if at all, we are talking about social processes in which the participants are involved and have a say in their contours - but this says nothing about their quality. The legitimacy of these contours cannot be justified by themselves; they require a concept of the good that does not only refer to a procedure. However, if one were to say that the participatory process itself should be supported by such substantial assumptions about the good, it would cross itself out. Because then it would still be participatory in terms of the means, if at all, but not in terms of the ends. Either one says that the good arises through the process, or one says that the good is already determined before the process. However, social design wants to say both at the same time: it wants to realise the good through good production, without the two being connected in any specific way in terms of content. In a similar way to the functionalist concept of design, the ends and means are once again separated. For the good that social design wants to bring into the world must not be a purely formally determined good in the sense of the way it comes into the world. On the other hand, the good must not be conceived in such a way that the process by which it is realised is external to it.
Designing against designing
Since its genesis, design has been characterised by the right motive of the modifiability of social practices and at the same time the danger of a loss of friction, a loss of resistance, a corrective that focuses on what can no longer be designed. A universalisation of design is not so much a promise, but rather a threat: the threat that a logic of the mere usability of all aspects of the way of life will inscribe itself into it (and that it will thus only be viewed from the perspective of instrumental reason). If one does not want to draw the drastic conclusion from this that design itself is ideological per se, then it would have to be about the following: What is needed is a practice of design that recognises what lies just beyond design - and this includes social relationships that form the basis of design, but are not simply a product of design. A critical theory of design that has yet to be formulated would argue against both functionalism and social design that work on the good should not be equated with the objectification and objectification of a very specific type of practice.
Daniel Martin Feige, Dr phil. habil., is Professor of Philosophy and Aesthetics in the Design Department at the Stuttgart State Academy of Art and Design.
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