In pursuit of the objects of designing

An improved understanding of the nature of designing might, I contend, be valuable in itself, and in the contexts of design research and research into computerized design support. As an initial step towards such an understanding, I first consider the question of what exactly designers are talking about when they talk of ‘an artefact’ they are designing as if it existed.

At the time of designing, it obviously does not, so there must be something else, ‘the objects of designing’, which design discourse is about. Having rejected so-called modal realism (the thesis that possible worlds are ‘real’) as too extravagant, I then consider the question of what kind of entity such objects of designing might be, and finally propose an answer in terms of which the nature of designing might be explained in what seems a philosophically plausible way.

The paper reports on work in progress, and so cannot be expected to offer fully justified conclusions.