Design and the Question of Aesthetics

Abstract

In the article an approach to aesthetics is suggested with the focus on the education of the designer rather than on the outcome of the design. Design is taken to be an interpretative intervention into a social context which requires a sensibility for the context. The forming of this sensibility is the goal of an aesthetic education. Through discussions of different approaches to aesthetics like Grant Kester’s dialogical aesthetics and Kant’s critique of the faculty of judgement, it is emphasized how sensibility as the key focus of aesthetics rather than art and beauty makes the ability to manoeuvre in the social context a central issue of aesthetics. As the argument goes the link to an aesthetic education is understood as an education of our senses through cultural products, which is also a link to a perspective that appears to be absent in present debates on aesthetics in relation to design. Taking up this approach to aesthetics is to suggest a more valuable view on aesthetics in relation to design and educational aspects of the designer’s competences.