Most contemporary philosophers and scholars have portrayed two ways of knowing the world for mankind. One is the current dominant way, commonly known as modern science or modern technology, and the second one is the path that existed in the past, which is called poiesis. Andrew Pickering believes that poiesis is not a piece of knowledge but a performance. He brings three examples to clarify this performance and concludes that the way of understanding poiesis passes through “Tao” and other ancient non-Western philosophies. This paper focused on exploring these philosophies to use them to educate a new generation of designers. Today, as a creator of artifacts and consequently our artificial world, a designer stands at a distance from nature from the beginning of the design process. While to obtain favorable design and construction in that nature does not become a domain of science, we need to change our view. There is another possibility beyond just using physical eyes or sense-perception, called intuition. So the designer must specify the path from the very beginning. The importance of training philosopher designers is obvious here. Each of these two methods will demonstrate different rules to the designer, which inevitably leads to the creation of different products. Change in the designer’s view can lead to a change in the process of producing artifacts. Heidegger believed that art is probable salvation and technology is probable danger. (Ihde 1979) This article did not try to find a definition for art, but what is apparent is that the way of intuition can lead to the creation of a work of art. It means changing the value of the artificial object to the level of artwork. By reviewing and comparing the practices, attitudes, and human legacies as part of human knowledge, especially when it comes to how to interact with nature and how to be inspired by it, this paper tried to find solutions for contemporary design. A change in the designers’ attitude and views can reduce the distance between humans and the world to restore the currently classified world to its original integrity.
The article was presented in “Running with Scissors,” 13th International Conference of the EAD, University of Dundee, 10-12 April 2019
and published on: The Design Journal, 22:sup1,1715-1722, DOI: 10.1080/14606925.2019.1595003