RELATED TERMS: Computer Science; Epistemology; Information science; Methodology and Method; Ontological Designing; Ontological Metalepsis; Ontological Turn; Phenomenology; Philosophy; World-Building; “J. L. Austin once quipped that existence was ‘like breathing only quieter’.” (Garrett, 2006: xiv) Ontology, Metaphysics, Philosophy … Design Ontology is a much contested term. For example, it may be used to refer to an essentialContinue reading “Ontology”
Author Archives: aparsons474
Ontological Structure of Literary Fiction
RELATED TERMS: Actantiality; Affordances; Metalepsis; As noted in the entry for Metalepsis, in the context of literary fiction, the simplest ontological structure has three levels: In contrast to the reality of the world in which the book is authored and read, the diegesis and the extradiegesis are both fictional. While constructed as a hierachy, evenContinue reading “Ontological Structure of Literary Fiction”
Ontological Metalepsis
RELATED TERMS: Avant-garde movements; Deixis and Deictic Acts; Lifeworld – Lebenswelt – Umwelt; Metalepsis; Storyworld; Tangled Hierarchy and Strange Loop The notion of ontological metalepsis is particularly important for design practices as it emphasises that meaning is generated through the engagement of the sensorimotor, experiential, existential, moving body with the designed objects, services and environments. Metalepsis,Continue reading “Ontological Metalepsis”
Ontological Designing
RELATED TERMS: Design History; Design Practice and Functionalism; Genealogy – Nietzsche; Latour; Lifeworld – Lebenswelt – Umwelt; Object-Oriented Ontology; Ontological Turn; Ontology In The Basic Problems of Phenomenology, Martin Heidegger writes that, “The point is not to gain some knowledge about philosophy but to be able to philosophise.” If, to paraphrase Heidegger, the point is notContinue reading “Ontological Designing”
Objects and Events
RELATED TERMS: Being and Doing (and Having); Things; Time It is argued that a design ‘is’ what it ‘does’. Although constituted by materiality in the form of ‘objects’ or ‘things’, a design ‘is’ an ‘event’; it ‘occurs’, in a particular place, at a particular time for particular people. Carlo Rovelli notes that, “The basic unitsContinue reading “Objects and Events”
Object-Oriented Ontology
RELATED TERMS: Actor-Network Theory; New Materialism; Ontological Designing; Postanthropocentrism; Posthuman; Posthumanism; Speculative Realism; As an inheritor of the line of thinking developed by actor-network theory, on the one hand, and phenomenology, on the other hand, object-oriented ontology (OOO) may be of interest to design practices in as far as it concerns the relationship between theContinue reading “Object-Oriented Ontology”
Non-Hylomorphism
RELATED TERMS: In defining the soul (psuchē), or what we might now call consciousness or experience [1], Aristotle’s theory of hylomorphism holds that the relation of soul to body is that of form to matter. Hylomorphism is a doctrine stating that the order displayed by material systems is due to the form projected in advanceContinue reading “Non-Hylomorphism”
Nihilism
RELATED TERMS: The term nihilism is derived from the Latin nihil, nothing. Nihilism means belief in nothing. It represents a refusal to accept as given any values. In particular, nihilism questions the basis of ethical values. In one sense, it is an extreme form of scepticism, although its concern is not knowledge and knowing but believingContinue reading “Nihilism”
Niche
RELATED TERMS: Ecology and Economy; Environment; Habitat Two ecological terms which may be of particular signficance for design practices are habitat and niche. Odum distinguishes the two terms in the following way: “The ecological niche of an organism depends not only on where it lives but also on what it does. By analogy, it may beContinue reading “Niche”
Narratology
RELATED TERMS: Actantial model – Greimas; Architecture; Reception Theory and Reader-Response Criticism; Story (fabula) and Plot (sjuzet or sjuzhet); Structuralism; Telos and Teleology “The study of narrative has become so popular that the French have honored it with a term – la narratologie. … Modern narratology combines two powerful intellectual trends: the Anglo-American inheritance ofContinue reading “Narratology”
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