The Philosophy of Design by Glenn Parsons

Author:Glenn Parsons [Parsons, Glenn]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Wiley
Published: 2015-11-23T00:00:00+00:00

Notes

1 The literature in this area is vast, and crosses many disciplines; for a recent overview, see Hicks and Beaudry (2010).

2 A further complexity arises from the fact that, as Daniel Miller (1987) points out, quite different forces can be at play in different kinds of consumer goods: houses may be very different from cheap disposable consumer items, for instance.

3 Many theoretical accounts simply ignore this crucial point. Krippendorff (2006), for example, notes that people buy cars, clothes and similar items for their symbolic meaning, not their utility, and declares that “meaning matters more than function” is therefore an “axiom” for Design (47–9).

4 A classic discussion of the Greek concept of eros is Plato's Symposium, in which not only bodies but decidedly non-sexual things, such as customs, laws and philosophical ideas, are all described as objects of eros (210 –12).

5 Loos develops this idea through a rather acerbic comparison of the clothing habits of the English and those of his fellow Viennese; the latter dress to stand out, but are really all the same, whereas the English behave as individuals, despite their uniform appearance ([1919] 2011, 73–6).

6 As mentioned above, in this chapter I consider the rejection of ornament only insofar as it relates to expression; in chapter 6, I will examine the idea of aesthetic ornamentation.

7 Of course, here again one might think of confounding factors, such as the pleasant relaxation that one gets from a leisurely stroll, but not from the faster trip by bicycle.

8 This premise is relevant to a counter-example to the Better Realization Argument suggested by Victor Bruzzone. He points out that verbal expression of our thoughts is superior to communication using bodily expression, or “body language.” However, it would be highly unintuitive to conclude that we ought therefore not to regard expressiveness (facial expressions, for example) as a good-making feature of bodies. People with no bodily expressiveness would strike us as bizarre, or inhuman. However, in this case we can identify a “spin-off benefit” of the use of body language. For we are emotional creatures, and emotions are to a significant degree (though not exclusively) experienced in the body, so that bodily expression serves to effectively communicate emotion in a way that purely verbal communication cannot.

9 Irving Singer (1966) explores the way that illusions allow people to “create their own universe” in the context of romantic love.

10 Here again there emerges an interesting connection between Modernist ideas and the classical tradition; compare the contrast drawn by Hamilton (1930) between the plain, realistic aesthetic of ancient Greek art and the highly ornamental and fantastical tendencies of other cultures.

11 The famous exception is Plato, some of whose objections to poetry were discussed in chapter 2.

12 Some does, at least, but of course certain genres (Hollywood movies, for example) are heavily constrained by an analogous set of factors.

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