Engineering Design Aristotle’s Poetics as a framework for Engineering Design Aristotle’s Poetics By Justin Montgomery Currently, there are essentially two methods used in engineering design: one method, known as human centered design, focuses on the artistic style and emotional appeal to the user. The alternative, traditional engineering design, focuses on the technical and functional working of the design. Each philosophical approach to design would benefit from incorporating both methods of design. Here, both methods are examined in the light of the ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle’s Poetics, which laid a foundation for understanding design.
Introduction Human-centered design (HCD) is a design philosophy that has been key to the success of companies such as Apple that appeal to consumers on an emotional level. HCD helps designers incorporate users’ values, emotions, and needs into products. This approach differs from more conventional modern engineering design methods, which are founded on a systematic approach in which designers follow an explicit process to define an artifact or system to meet a need. Traditional methods consider the user in defining requirements at early stages of design but do not go as far to consider the user holistically.
he deconstructed tragedy and epic poetry to determine how they were and should be created.1 Although Poetics may at first seem irrelevant to the design of technical artifacts, a closer examination of the text, the original meanings of its words, and the context in which it was written reveals that the design principles Aristotle established apply beyond poetry. The word poetics actually derives from the Greek word poiesis, which means “making things” or the “science of production.” (To avoid confusion with the text itself, I will use poiesis here to refer to the principles and theoretical framework for design laid out in the Poetics.)
HCD methods alone are not an adequate replacement for engineering design methods. Methods for HCD tend to focus on the human-centered parts of the design process without establishing clearly how they fit into a more comprehensive design framework. Consequently, they have limitations in addressing technical and nonhuman aspects of engineering design.
The concept of art that poiesis addresses comes from the word techne, which describes the transaction between an intelligent being and the intelligible world and is related to our word technology. Tragedy and epic poetry served as example media of poiesis, and other authors have interpreted poiesis as being applicable to other creative outlets, such as visual art and music.2 On this basis, this work from Aristotle could also be relevant to engineering design.
Engineering designers and the users of engineered products alike would benefit from a holistic approach to design that has the strengths of both established engineering design methods and HCD methods. However, one probably could not achieve such a goal by arbitrarily combining existing methods. The aim of this research was to clarify and strengthen the connections between engineering design and HCD by viewing each as a specialized realization of a general method for designing that was described in one of the earliest texts on design: Aristotle’s Poetics.1 This method will be referred to as poiesis, the original Greek name that Aristotle gave it.
Since the times of Greek antiquity, and especially with the advent of the industrial revolution, technology and art split from techne into distinct areas. Technology and engineering aligned more closely with scientific knowledge. However, engineering design should ideally contain an awareness of both the technical and the empathic, humanistic aspects of an artifact. The Poetics has been recognized as having significant direct and indirect influence on our current ideas about the design of useful objects.3 The context in which Aristotle wrote the Poetics makes it highly relevant to the goal of uniting traditional engineering design methods and HCD methods.
Background
What Is Poiesis?
Context
Poiesis is not the final designed product but rather the art of creating it. Aristotle identified poiesis as being fundamentally concerned with mimesis, or imitation of
“Poiesis is not the final designed product but rather the art of creating it.” but rather the art of creating it.” “Poiesis is not the final designed product
In the fourth century BCE, Aristotle wrote Poetics, in which
Fall 2013 | Explorations
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