The Aesthetics of Design

by Forsey, Jane

• ISBN13: 9780199964369
• ISBN10: 019996436X
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2013-01-16
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Summary

The Aesthetics of Designoffers the first full treatment of design in the field of philosophical aesthetics. Aesthetic theory has traditionally occupied itself with fine art in all its forms, sometimes with craft, and often with notions of beauty and sublimity in art and nature. In so doing, it has largely ignored the quotidian and familiar objects and experiences that make up our daily lives. Yet how we interact with design involves aesthetic choices and judgements as well as practical, cognitive and moral considerations. This work challenges the discipline to broaden its scope to include design, and illustrates how aesthetics helps define our human concerns. Subjecting design to as rigorous a treatment as any other aesthetic object exposes it to three main challenges that form the core of this book. First, design must be distinguished from art and craft as a unique kind of object meriting separate philosophical attention, and is here defined in part by its functional qualities. Second, the experience of design must be defended as having a particularly aesthetic nature. Here Forsey adapts the Kantian notion of dependent beauty to provide a model for our appreciation of design as different from our judgments of art, craft and natural beauty. Finally, design is important for aesthetics and philosophy as a whole in that it is implicated in broader human concerns. Forsey situates her theory of design as a constructive contribution to the recent movement of Everyday Aesthetics, which seeks to re-enfranchise philosophical aesthetics as an important part of philosophy at large.

Author Biography

Jane Forsey is Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of Winnipeg.

Table of Contents

Introduction
I. The Ontology of Design
1. Some Methodological Considerations
2. Intuitions about Design
3. Design and Art, Design and Craft
i. Formalism and Art as an Object
ii. Expression and Art as an Activity
4. The Definition of Design
II. Locating the Aesthetic: Beauty and Judgements of Taste
1. he Problem of Normativity
i. Realism
ii. Subjectivism
2. Aesthetic Judgement
3. The Kantian Account
i. The Faculty of Judgement
ii. Subjective Aspects of Beauty
iii. Objective Aspects of Beauty
4. Normative Beauty
III. Design and Dependent Beauty
1. Free Beauty
2. Dependent Beauty
i. Beautiful Things
ii. Pure and Impure Judgements of Taste
3. The Appreciation of Function
4. Fine Art and Craft
5. The Beauty of Design
IV. Everyday Aesthetics and Design
1. The Critique of Aesthetics
2. The Expansion of Aesthetics
i. Saito: Activity, Pleasure, Indeterminacy
ii. Haapala: The Strange, the Familiar, and the Sense of Place
3. Design and the Everyday
Conclusion: The Significance of Design
Bibliography