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The Importance of Aristotle to Design Thinking James Wang

Introduction The importance of Aristotle to the teaching and practice of design is that recourse to his theories of , imagination, and practical intellect allow us to justify design activity in two fundamental ways. First, according to Aristotle’s of technē as knowing by making, design should be regarded as a rational activity in and of itself. Although design is intricately linked to technology, and technology is, by , utilitarian, design is still first and foremost a of working with formal causes to transform them into final causes. In this respect, designers need not allow their activity to be appropriated by social activists, or even worse, by consumers. Moreover, Aristotle offers a cogent account of the way that imagination supports, assists, and even enables reason in the working of both the theoretical intellect and the practical intellect. This realization does much to validate imagination as a concept worthy of attention in academic and discourse. The second way that Aristotle’s theories justify design activity is by defending the puzzling reluctance of many designers to commit themselves fully to the service of communitarian in regard to social and environmental sustainability. According to Aristotle’s theory of the practical intellect, makers—those who work with technē—are concerned only with the excellence of mak- ing, in contrast with doers—those who work prudentially to estab- lish justice and who are very concerned about public values and social effects. The critics of design want designers to be doers, too; but because designers are essentially makers, transforming them- selves into public servants is often difficult, if not impossible.

Two A recurring issue of design theory, in regard to both and practice, is the problem of understanding the of design. Design is generally believed to be an activity that involves creativity. Further, creativity is believed to operate through imagi- nation. The trouble is that scholars have never been totally con- vincing in their attempts to account for either imagination in or creativity in general. In this regard, design theory

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Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/DESI_a_00206 by guest on 01 October 2021 parallels theory, or —a branch of that is notoriously contentious. Architects, for example, have long regarded their work as a form of art, while design engineers tend to disparage such a claim and insist that design is a rational activity more than it is an imaginative activity. Nonetheless, at a crucial point in the design process, whether a building or an industrial product is developed, creativity happens, and the project moves on to completion (or it does not happen, and the project is eventually scrapped). A theoretical understanding of design as an intellectual activity, therefore, would seem to be most welcome and useful. A second problem currently troublesome in the discipline of design is its response to the arguments of various proponents of communitarian ethics; Linda Groat, for example, argues that designers should operate with much a greater cultural sensitivity and a firmer commitment to ecological sustainability.1 The is that, although design faculties and student bodies have been agreeable in to operating with such progressive social values and goals in , in actual practice they have not always been as forthcoming as the activists for would like.2 Why? The answer clearly is not as simple as suggesting that architects and design engineers lack a proper social . The reason that designers sometimes seem to be lukewarm about the social impact of their work resides more in the intellectual realm than in the moral one. Something in creativity itself appears to be intrinsically resistant to thinking in terms of social effects. If this source of resistance could be identified, design teachers and practitioners would, again, very likely welcome and use this .

One Solution A better understanding of both these conundrums may be located in the writings of the earliest in ancient — particularly in the teachings of Aristotle. This connection should not be as surprising as it first may sound. Alfred North White- head’s famous dictum that all Western is a series of footnotes to and Aristotle remains true, even in the Digital Age. Of primary to design theory and pedagogy is Aristo- tle’s definition of design implicit in his concept of technē. This term 1 Linda Groat, “The Architect as Artist or is also the source of our word “technology,” which is significant ? A Modest Proposal for the Architect-as-Cultivator,” in Culture – because design is usually understood as the of technologi- – Architecture, ed. K. D. Moore cal invention. Moreover, Aristotle’s concept of technē is the source (Burlington, VT: Ashgate Publishing, of what we call “art, after ars” which is ’s 2000), 129. of Aristotle’s term. At its core, technē means “making,” but it also 2 For example, J. Kabo and C. Baillie, means “knowing,” thus relating the term to the Latin term scientia “Seeing Through the Lens of Social or “.” Ultimately, technē means “knowing by making,” and Justice: A Threshold for ,” European Journal of Engineering Aristotle contrasts technē with epistēmē or “knowing by thinking” Education 34, no. 4 (2009): 317.

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Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/DESI_a_00206 by guest on 01 October 2021 (i.e., thinking rationally). The is that technē can know only contingent because it is limited to sensation, memory, and imagination; whereas, epistēmē can know necessary reality, because it is only limited by the and eternal rules of .3 For Aristotle, making is less important than theorizing. This belief would eventually be overturned in the modern world, explicitly by elevating imagination to an eminence superior to rea- son. The modern in the conception of imagination is based on the argument of the great poets of the Romantic Age, along with the philosophers Kant and Nietzsche, that imagination is a mental power that allows to apprehend reality directly, without the aid of reason. Nevertheless, Aristotle also has a lot to say about imagination, or what he calls fantasia, and it is the contention of this paper that Aristotle’s commentary on imagina- tion goes a long way toward accounting for design creativity. The problem of explaining the epistemology of design in such a way as to at least partially de-mystify it, and thereby make it more acceptable to the rationalist pedagogical of the , presents a difficult task to anyone who believes in the importance of knowing by making—whether one is concerned with art or with technology. A few years ago, Donald Schön, stand- ing on the shoulders of , did much to validate creativ- ity as a legitimate academic enterprise with his advancement of the concept of “reflection-in-action,” based on a confidence in the tacit knowledge of knowing by doing.4 But Schön did not investigate the of imagination as the core activity of creativity, thus leaving “designerly thinking,” as Nigel Cross calls it, still in the dark.5 This 3 Aristotle, , 981a24–981b9. same darkness is where Stefani Ledewitz says that designers must 4 Donald Schön, The Reflective Practi- “leap” to be creative.6 Nonetheless, remembering Aristotle’s teach- tioner: How Professionals Think in Action ing does shine some light on the way that imagination works with (New York: Basic , 1983); “The Architectural Studio as an Exemplar of reason in the design process, making creativity more accessible to Education for Reflection-in-Action,” rational investigation and therefore more respectable academically. Journal of Architectural Education 38, The problem of persuading design teachers, students, and no. 1 (1984): 2-9; Educating the Reflective practitioners to include cultural sensitivity and environmental Practitioner (New York: Basic Books, concern—in fact, to be communitarian —as part of 1987); and “Designing: Rules, Types and Words,” Design Studies 9, no. 3 (1988): their thinking in the design process would appear to be an entirely 181-90. John Dewey’s works include practical matter. In a sense, we might say that designers simply and Nature (New York: need to be re-educated, so that architects not be so dreamy Dover, 1929); Art as Experience (New and engineers will not be so focused on solving problems, and York: Perigree, 1934); and Experience and both will learn to be more socially conscious. And yet attempts Education (New York: Collier/McMillan, to achieve such changes have often failed. Part of the problem in 1938). 5 Nigel Cross, “Designerly Ways of the university is the difficulty of introducing more humanities Knowing: Design Discipline Versus courses into an already packed curriculum. The better strategy Design Science,” Design Issues 17, might be to try to understand why designers are the way they are no. 3 (2001): 50. and why they the way they act. In other words, rather than first 6 Stephani Ledewitz, “Models of Design trying to convince designers to work with an awareness of com- in Studio Teaching,” Journal of Architectural Education 38, no. 2 munitarian ethics, we might start by trying to understand their (1985): 5. apparent reluctance to do so, and even their intransigence, despite

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Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/DESI_a_00206 by guest on 01 October 2021 their agreement with the call for change. The problem actually is psychological, and Aristotle again offers a rational for the tendency by designers to think and act independently. Until very recently, artists and inventors and all designers were regarded as solitary geniuses who were often nearly mad and almost always contrary—but their work was brilliant. Frank Lloyd Wright is a classic example. So, too, is the recently deceased Steve Jobs. This model of the “maker” persists even now, and Aristotle gives a convincing explanation for it in his acute of , differentiating not only making from theorizing but also making from doing. To put the matter starkly, the advo- cates of communitarian ethical reform want designers to be doers, but they are at —makers, and it is perhaps impossible for them to change.

Aristotle’s Theory of Rationality The dominance of rationality in Western civilization began with the ancient in in the fifth and fourth centuries BCE, specifically with the teachings of , Plato, and Aristotle. In 4 of Plato’s , Socrates argues that , or reason, is the highest mental power.7 Reason is the ability to understand and judge phenomena and to draw conclusions and contemplate . Unlike lower forms of intellect—including technē, a combination of sensation and imagination—reason alone accesses universal and eternal reality. This feature of reason is important to keep in mind when we examine the role of imagination in Aristotle’s . For these ancient philosophers, the organization of the intel- lect is strictly hierarchical. According to Plato, logos, is superior to thumos or spiritedness, a sense of self-worth, as thumos is superior to , or physical .8 Moreover, according to Aristotle, ratio- nality is not only what distinguishes from and , but it also is what gives its or sub- stantial form.9 At the lowest level of the hierarchy, plants have a vegetable —the ability to nourish and reproduce. At the middle level, animals also have a sensitive soul—the ability to experience sensations and move around easily. At the highest level, humanity also has a rational soul—the ability to think and understand, to consider ends, and to plan ways of achieving them. Again, the of realizing ends is an important feature of Aristotle’s understanding of imagination. To be sure, Aristotle’s theory of the is the most distinctive feature of his philosophy as a whole.10 The idea is that everything, both natural phenomena and human artifacts, has 7 Plato, Republic IV, in Great Dialogues of a or a perfect fulfillment, and human beings are assigned Plato, trans. W. H. D. Rouse (New York: the duty of identifying the end of all entities and activities and New American Library, 1955). to strive to achieve that end. Telos is what Aristotle calls the final 8 Ibid. 9 Aristotle, De Anima, 414a30–414b19. cause, or the ultimate good of the formal cause, or the identifying 10 Aristotle, , 195a15-26. nature or “whatness” of anything. The material cause is the

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Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/DESI_a_00206 by guest on 01 October 2021 substance that comprises anything, and the efficient cause is the producer or maker of anything. Aristotle’s psychology, like his physics and his metaphysics, is completely teleological. In fact, Aristotle explicitly defines the predetermined end, or final cause, of the rational soul as , or .11 Aristotle argues that the telos of any form or essence is intrinsic to or complete in itself. The final cause, in other words, is never utilitarian. Happi- ness is the greatest human good that can be desired only for itself; therefore, happiness is the final cause of being human. This idea comes into play when we consider the place of ethics in design theory and practice. Aristotle’s theory of the four causes is problematic, how- ever, when it is considered in relation to design activity. Since the advent of the “new philosophy” of , , and René Descartes (among others) in the seventeenth century, the shift from rationality to has called the ideas of Aristo- tle into doubt. One thing is clear: The of , thermody- namics, and quantum are not teleological. A truism of modern science is that the operation of nature has no end or pur- pose, and, by implication, being human also has no end or pur- pose, which also applies to the things that humans think or make or do. In such a view of the world, everything is utilitarian and temporary—increasingly so with the emphasis on the constant technological that is demanded from designers at the present . Does Aristotle’s idea of , then, have any place in a discussion of design epistemology today? At least for the purpose of this paper, the answer is “yes.” The intellectual working of the creative process, particularly in regard to imagination, the driving mysterious at the core of making, can be illuminated by viewing it from an Aristotelian per- spective. But even before reaching into the heart of the matter to look at imagination, we would do well to consider one of the struc- tural features of Aristotle’s theory of the four causes. According to Aristotle, the final cause or actual reality of anything is deter- mined by the formal cause or potentiality of that thing. Thus, the producers or the makers—those as the efficient cause—do not determine the final cause of the thing or the activity. That the final cause is inherent in the formal cause is one of the principal of the theory. The designer, then, does not determine the final cause of a design. Rather, the essential form on which the design is based produces the final cause. Even more so, the user of the product cannot determine the final cause. Nevertheless, the only question at the present time is whether the designer or the consumer determines the ultimate good of a design; the utilitarian nature of designing is taken for granted. Aristotle might argue that the good or final cause of any design ought to be determined

11 Aristotle, , rationally by its formal cause or by what is being designed. One 1098a15-17.

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Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/DESI_a_00206 by guest on 01 October 2021 great benefit of taking an Aristotelian approach to design is that in doing so would retain reason at the core of the process and thereby would make the process more accessible and understand- able than it is at present, as it strives to satisfy the dubious and irrational appetites of the public. To argue that the designer, the efficient cause, following genius, determines the final good of a design is to take a huge step away from rationality; meanwhile, to say that the public as consumer—not one of the causes at all—determines the final good of a design is to flee from reason entirely. Nonetheless, we have been making this assertion for at least the past 25 years. Perhaps the strongest proponent of the public determination of the uses of technological design is Andrew Feen- berg.12 Feenberg’s argument rests implicitly on the difference between artistic making and technological making—not a differ- ence that Aristotle would recognize. Art is usually to be “purely” creative because its end is the imaginative expression of the artist’s understanding of particular and phe- nomena (R. G. Collingwood provides the classic argument for this belief).13 However, technology is utilitarian by definition; it is prag- matic and has social . As Herbert Simon states, “Everyone designs who devises courses of action aimed at changing existing situations into preferred ones.”14 Note, however, that Simon empha- sizes the role of the designer, or the efficient cause, in design. He is not prepared to forego the rational expertise of designers so that technology can be controlled by populist . Feenberg, meanwhile, makes precisely this argument. In his typology of the interpretations of technology, Feenberg ana- lyzes technology according to whether humans control it and whether it is neutral or has social value. The resulting types are (the belief that technology is uncontrollable, and has no intrinsic social value); (the belief that tech- nology is controllable, but has no intrinsic social value); substantiv- ism (the belief that technology has meaning, but is not controlled by humans); and critical theory (the belief that technology has meaning, and can be controlled by humans). Feenberg argues that critical theory provides the most hopeful interpretation of technol- ogy because the general population can shape it and use it for social betterment. Feenberg criticizes both determinism and instrumentalism as modern scientific interpretations that separate —or formal causes, from ends—or final causes. Aristotle 12 Andrew Feenberg, “What Is ?” www-rohan.sdsu.edu/ would applaud Feenberg for this criticism, but he would not con- faculty/feenberg/komaba.htm (accessed done Feenberg’s next assertion that the ends of technological August 1, 2011). designs are determined by the users or consumers (not the designs 13 R. G. Collingwood, The of Art themselves) as formal causes, or even by the designers as efficient (Oxford: , 1938). causes. Moreover, Feenberg ignores essences or formal causes com- 14 Herbert Simon, The Science of the pletely in favor of political purposes. In other words, the designs of Artificial, 3rd ed. (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1996): 111.

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Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/DESI_a_00206 by guest on 01 October 2021 technology exist only to advance social justice through progressive populist politics. Such an interpretation of the formal cause and the final cause of designing is grossly distorted. Aristotle states that making is knowing. It has directly to do with social effects, which are only incidental conse- quences. For Aristotle, technē is purely rational. For example, a maker might design a boat. In this case, the maker is the efficient cause. But what is the final cause? To determine the final cause, we need to look back to the formal cause, which might be described as “boat-ness,” or the intrinsic nature or essence of boats. The design that the maker draws is either a good design or a bad design for a boat. In other words, the designer cannot ignore the formal essence he or she is given to design. In addition, the designer’s purpose is irrelevant to the final cause. Perhaps the designer hopes that the boat will bring him both fame and fortune. Perhaps she will give away all the earned to help the poor. None of this to the act of design, according to Aristotle. And, what the person who buys the boat does with it certainly does not matter either. The buyer does not determine the ultimate good of the boat the designer draws. To appreciate this view of design creativity, the focus must be on the actual psychology of technē, leaving aside for a moment the and the cultural politics that have appropriated designing in recent years. The value of taking an Aristotelian per- spective on the process of making is that doing so allows us to regard creativity in general and designing in particular as funda- mentally rational activities. Designs are created by the action of the intellect—not by compassionate or the will to power. Designs begin with some idea of a formal cause in mind, and they end with a final cause that in some way fulfills and perfects the formal cause. Moreover, with each new design, something new is added to human knowledge. Aristotle teaches us that making is knowing. Therefore, making—as both art and technology—is a proper for university education.

Aristotle’s Theory of Imagination The formal cause of design comes at the beginning of the design process, and the final cause comes at the end. Both of these posi- tions need to be defended as firmly rational, which the previous section has tried to do. However, the middle part of the process— precisely where the creative act happens—has given countless scholars the most problems. This middle area is the stronghold of imagination, but no one has ever explained this mysteriously cre- ative force to the satisfaction of the —or to makers them- selves, for that matter. Perhaps one reason is that many have assumed that Aristotle, supreme rationalist that he is, would not

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Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/DESI_a_00206 by guest on 01 October 2021 have much to say about something as strange as imagination. Although the is partially true, what Aristotle does say about phantasia is worth remembering. To examine what Aristotle says about imagination, we begin by noting what his teacher Plato had to say. In fact, Plato has little use for either imagination or creativity, what he calls poiēsis.15 Referring explicitly to poets in the Ion and the Symposium, Plato dismisses what we would call creativity for the simple reason that poiēsis is not rational. As Socrates famously complains in the Apol- ogy, poets often cannot even explain what their own poems mean. Plato, meanwhile, makes clear in the Theaetetus, his dialogue on epistemology, that knowledge depends on apprehending through rationality the eidos, or the universal implicit in experience. Without rational ideas to serve as standards, all statements are merely relative in regard to truth—as many people still believe today. In Book 5 of the Republic, Plato limits imagination, or phanta- sia, to the lower physical world of sensations, but he states that reason has access to the higher metaphysical world of universal ideas. Important implications of this division are that not only is imagination irrational, but also poiēsis, or the activity of making, is not concerned at all with truth, or even with knowledge. These implications, of course, stand in contrast to Aristotle’s claim that technē, his term for making, is actually a rational activity. Nonetheless, for Plato, imagination is playful and inventive but ultimately frivolous. Just the same, Plato and Aristotle agree on one very impor- tant aspect of the action of phantasia in the service of poiēsis and technē. For both these ancient philosophers, imagination “imitates” the physical world by providing representations of phenomena, but imagination does not apprehend or “create” visions of - physical reality. This is important because, in the mod- ern world, imagination has often been thought to provide both the artist and the scientist with revelations of ultimate reality. This understanding is what people often mean today when they speak of creativity. Both Plato and Aristotle firmly state that only reason reveals necessary, universal . The best that imagination can do is to assist reason in speculative theorizing. Indeed, Aristotle’s theory of imagination is best discovered here, in relation to reason. The first feature of Aristotle’s understanding of imagination is that images originate in the mind—not in a transcendent reality, as many proponents of creativity argue. Aristotle argues that nothing but sensible objects actually exist (implicitly denying Plato’s of ideas or forms). Therefore, images must be rep- resentations of sensible objects. However, an important is made between objects and images. Objects are hylomorphic, which means that in the physical world, both form and substance 15 Plato, Ion, 541-42; , 22b; Symposium, 223 and Theaetetus,170c, in Great Dialogues of Plato.

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Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/DESI_a_00206 by guest on 01 October 2021 exist together—and only together—as one reality; images, mean- while, are forms that exist without substance.16 Because neither knowledge nor thinking itself can exist without reference to sensi- ble phenomena, the purely formal nature of images—together with their ability to range freely through both and time, and even as Victor Caston observes, their ability to be in error about sensible objects because they refer to sensations and not directly to the objects—is what permits any thinking whatsoever, including rational thinking, to occur.17 Therefore, we might say that Aristotle regards imagination as a necessary prerequisite to reason. According to Dorothea Frede, imagination provides two important cognitive functions in Aristotle’s psychology.18 In the first place, imagination fills the gap between sensation and reason, enabling the mind to achieve coherent representations of the con- stant flux of sensations. Imagination allows the mind not only to retain sensations, but also to organize and synthesize sensations and establish a sense of the reality of experience. This mental coherence is made possible by the ability of images to persist much longer than sensations and to move into the future where memory cannot go. The second major of imagination in Aristotle’s psychology is that it enables the intellect to consider the objects of sense for the purpose of judging future actions. According to Frede, Aristotle suggests a similarity in the way that the intellect and sensations operate, and that neither is complete without the other; imagination comes into play in this relationship. Imagination, says Frede, is nothing less than the means of ensuring the unity of body and mind: “The intellect is related to the intelligible as perception is to the sensibles; it receives their forms, the intelligible forms, without matter. The intellect as such has nothing to do with the body: It thinks by itself once it has grasped those immaterial forms. Is the intellect, then, strictly confined to the intelligible forms? And how is it related to the material objects given in sense perceptions?”19

Aristotle insists that the mind and the body are entirely separate and that the mind is concerned only with intelligible essences, while the body is concerned only with perceptions of material forms. However, he does say—and this thought is central to his psychology—that the mind could not think about ideas if it had 16 Aristotle, De Anima, 432. not first perceived objects through the senses. The implication is 17 Victor Caston, “Why Aristotle Needs Imagination,” 41, no. 1 (1996): that imagination is what holds the intellect and body together to 21-22. make . 18 Dorothea Frede, “The Cognitive Role of Moreover, as Frede explains, Aristotle believes that the Phantasia in Aristotle,” in on intellect also needs imagination to judge the value of possible Aristotle’s De Anima, eds. M. C. future actions. Actions cannot be understood until they are rep- Nussbaum and A. Oksenberg Rorty (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992): 274. resented by images. Neither sensation nor memory can instruct the 19 Frede, 287-88. intellect in representing the future. In the end, imagination is what

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Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/DESI_a_00206 by guest on 01 October 2021 enables the intellect to judge and determine behavior, in both the immediate and the distant future. Aristotle states that we have to visualize or imagine an action to judge both its practical outcome and its ultimate worth. Thus, for Aristotle, imagination fills the gap between perception and reason and assists in two important ways: first, by synthesizing sense perceptions into a coherent of reality, and second, by enabling the intellect to judge future actions prudently and wisely. Aristotle’s belief about the cognitive value of imagination is directly relevant to the theory and practice of design. All engineers, and many other designers too, believe that design creativity is a combination of reason and imagination—“convergent thinking” and “divergent thinking,” to use terms coined by J. P. Guilford.20 Rational or con- vergent thinking allows formal causes or problems to be identi- fied, while imaginative or divergent thinking allows the pursuit and contemplation of possible final causes or solutions. One of the main arguments that proponents of strongly rational design (e.g., Herbert Simon) emphasize is the importance of rationality in deci- sion making about the value of designs. Yet if Aristotle is right, reason does not make its decisions about future activities without first imagining them in as much detail as possible. The implica- tions for design studios and laboratories of the necessity of imagi- nation to even the most strictly rational approaches to design are immense, and these implications do much to validate imagination as an intellectual component equal to reason in the academic edu- cation of designers.

Aristotle’s Theory of the Practical Intellect As he explains in the Nichomachean Ethics X, 7, Aristotle believes that the highest activity of the human intellect is to rationally con- template the universal and eternal necessary truths of . Aristotle calls this power to apprehend ultimate reality the theo- retical intellect. Exercising the theoretical intellect to attain knowl- edge for its own sake, as an end in itself, is what gives humans the greatest happiness, because this is the final cause or of reason, which is the formal cause of being human. But Aristotle also states that another great mental power exists just below the theoretical intellect. This power is what he calls the practical intel- lect, and it consists of two kinds of thinking related to contingent . The first kind of practical intellect is technē, or art—know- ing by making. The second kind of practical intellect is or politics—knowing by doing. But what exactly does making know? And, how does the knowledge of making differ from the knowledge of doing? Making, as Aristotle explains in the Nichomachean Ethics, VI, is concerned entirely with the excellence of the activity of mak-

20 J. P. Guilford, “Creativity,” American ing. This excellence is what the maker—the artist or designer or Psychologist 5 (1950): 448. engineer—knows, and it is all that the maker knows. The or

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Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/DESI_a_00206 by guest on 01 October 2021 good of making has nothing to do with either the will or the moral —the “values,” as we say today—of the maker. A person of questionable can make a good work of art or design. To return to the example we considered earlier, a boat designer knows how to design an excellent boat, how to perfect the formal cause of boat-ness as the final cause of boat-ness. As Aristo- tle says in the , XXV, that an artist paints an excellent picture is more important than that he or she paints a factually accurate picture. And more to the purpose of the present argument, a maker is concerned not about the social effects of the work, but only with the excellence of the work. The one concerned with social effects is the prudent doer, perhaps the politician, who in the broadest sense of the term exhibits will and values in the social sphere—ideally for the attain- ment of justice. For the doer, the important thing is the judgment of his or her actions as socially good or bad. Doers tend to be prag- matic, willing to compromise and “do whatever it takes” to achieve the social effects they desire. The excellence of doing is measured by social consequences rather than by the nature and of the action itself. Thus, doers are exactly opposite to makers, who typi- cally care for nothing but the intrinsic excellence of their actions. Designers are makers. Although critical theory activists, along with countless social justice and environmentalist advocates, insist that designers should be doers, fully committed to commu- nitarian ethics, architects still tend to secretly regard themselves as artists and their work as high art, and engineers still tend to privately regard their work as scientific problem solving. Thus, one might say that the reaction to politics, among makers, makes strange bedfellows! Architects and engineers seem opposite in many respects, but they certainly respond in the same way to the call to exhibit greater social in their work. Their vision is directed more toward the making and perfecting of images than toward the social, ethical, and political implications of their work. In Aristotelian terms, making is what makes them happy, what fulfills and perfects their rational as designers. The reason, that architects and engineers—indeed, all designers— are often reluctant to become enthusiastic about cultural and ethi- cal demands, is that they are primarily makers, not doers, and it is Aristotle’s theory of the practical intellect that permits us to under- stand this distinction.

Conclusion The importance of Aristotle to the teaching and practice of design is that recourse to his theories of reason, imagination, and practical intellect allow us to justify design activity in two fundamental ways. First, according to Aristotle’s concept of technē as knowing by making, design should be regarded as a rational activity in and

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Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/DESI_a_00206 by guest on 01 October 2021 of itself. Although design is intricately linked to technology, and technology is, by definition, utilitarian, design is still first and foremost a matter of working with formal causes to transform them into final causes. Designers need not allow their activity to be appropriated by social activists or, even worse, by consumers. Moreover, Aristotle offers a cogent account of the way that imagi- nation supports, assists, and even enables reason in the working of both the theoretical intellect and the practical intellect. This real- ization does much to validate imagination as a concept worthy of attention in academic research and discourse. The second way that Aristotle’s theories justify design activity is by defending the puz- zling reluctance of many designers to fully commit themselves to the service of communitarian ethics in regard to social justice and environmental sustainability. According to Aristotle’s theory of the practical intellect, makers—those who work with technē—are con- cerned only with the excellence of making, in contrast with doers—those who work prudentially to establish justice and are very concerned about public values and social effects. The critics of design want designers to be doers too, but because designers are essentially makers, transforming themselves into public servants is often difficult, if not impossible.

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