A Cautious Prometheus? A Few Steps Toward a Philosophy of Design with Special Attention to Peter Sloterdijk

Abstract

Excerpt: "The reason I am interested in the spread in comprehension and extension of the term design is not because of any intimate knowledge of design practice. (I know even less about its history and I hope the many historians of the notion among you will not contradict me too much). Yet I take its expansion as a fascinating tell tale of a change in the ways we deal with objects and action more generally. If it is true as I have claimed that we have never been modern, and if it is true, as a consequence, that matters of fact have now clearly become matters of concern, then there is logic to the following observation: the typically modernist divide between materiality on the one hand and design on the other is slowly being dissolved away. The more objects are turned into things that is, the more matters of facts are turned into matters of concern the more they are rendered into objects of design through and through."