INNOVATIVE DESIGN in the scope of teleological reasoning.

Athanasios Kouzelis

Abstract
The present survey explore the scope of designers teleological tendency to view the
objects as ‘designed for useful purposes’. This view argues that teleology is an innate,
basic mode of reasoning that, throughout educational development, is selectively applied
by design practitioners to artifacts and user-centered properties.
An alternative proposal argues that teleological reasoning derives from design
practitioners’ knowledge of intentionality and is not restricted to any particular category
of expediency, as a concept of function is.

Keywords: Teleology; Design educational methodology; Object Intentionality.

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Every objective purpose is said to be teleological when it gives evidence of design or

appears to be directed toward certain ends. For example, a person who buys an airplane
ticket, reads a book, or cultivates the earth is trying to achieve a certain end: getting to a
given city, acquiring knowledge, or getting food. Similarly features of organisms are
teleological as well: a bird's wings are for flying, eyes are for seeing, kidneys are
constituted for regulating the composition of the blood. Also all material objects made by
people are teleological: a knife is made for cutting, a clock is made for telling time, a
thermostat is made to regulate temperature.

Inanimate objects and processes (other than those created by people) are not teleological
in the sense just explained because we gain no additional scientific understanding by
perceiving them as directed toward specific ends or for serving certain purposes. The
configuration of a sodium chloride molecule (common salt) depends on the structure of
sodium and chlorine, but it makes no sense to say that that structure is made up so as to
serve a certain purpose, such as tasting salty. Similarly, the shape of a mountain is the
result of certain geological processes, but it did not come about so as to serve a certain
purpose, such as providing slopes suitable for skiing. We may use sodium chloride as
food and a mountain for skiing, but the use that we make of these objects or phenomena
is not the reason why they came into existence or why they have certain configurations.
On the other hand, a knife and a car exist and have particular configurations precisely in
order to serve the purposes of cutting and transportation. Similarly, the wings of birds
came about precisely because they permitted flying, which was reproductively
advantageous.

The previous comments point out the essential characteristics of teleological reasoning,
which may be encompassed in the following definition: "Teleological explanations
account for the existence of a certain feature in a system by demonstrating the feature's
contribution to a specific property or state of the system." Teleological explanations
require that the feature contribute to the persistence of a certain state or property of the
system: wings serve for flying; the sharpness of a knife serves for cutting. Moreover, and
this is the essential component of the teleological concept, this contribution must be the
reason why the feature exists at all: the reason why wings came to be is because they
serve for flying; the reason why a knife is sharp is that it is intended for cutting.

It is useful to distinguish different kinds of design as teleological reasoning. Actions and

objects are purposeful when the end-state or goal is consciously intended by an agent.
Thus, a man mowing his lawn is acting teleologically in the purposeful sense; objects
resulting from purposeful behavior exhibit artificial (or external) teleology. A knife, a
table, a car, and a thermostat are examples of systems exhibiting artificial teleology: their
teleological features are consciously intended by some agent.

As a composite entity, every object constitutes a teleological choice of the subject that is
also its creator. From an abstract and undefined composition it gradually progresses
towards a concrete and clarified form, which is the result of the completion of the
epistemic definition of the object. This outcome is also a documentation of the
determining reasoning in such a way that the shape of the object can be described as a
complete and unified whole that holds pre-defined properties and specified data.

The composition of the shape of an object is not completely identified with its logical
structure, but it exceeds it due to the means which makes it a known category of reality.
This is because of the fact that in case its form hides the epistemic content of the object,
i.e. it turns it into a covert or secret matter of reality, the relationship between the object
and its form is not identical.

The components of any shape are immaterial elements, but they have the ability to
determine the mass, volume, texture and dimensions of an object. The point, lines and
surface operate as such components. Based on their position and combinations in time
and space, the circumstances whereby objects get their own one-dimensional, two-
dimensional and three-dimensional forms, are produced. Although the point, as a
geometric element is by convention equivalent with what has no dimensions at all, its
proliferation and connection with other geometric data generate infinite combinations that
produce the dimensional shapes of the objects.

The geometric components construct the whole of any form of an object through
continuous relevance, coherence and interrelation, which are fundamental functions for
their formation in space and time. Any convention between these components also
contain the terms of systemic development and construction of forms, including their
geometrical sizes and material specifications.

The geometric dimensions of the shape of an object are defined by the size which is
attributed to it in human activity. Whether organized or not, the composing data give the
distinguishable style and special appearance, which differentiate it from the rest of things.
Shape demands observation, i.e. the perceptive documentation of every aspect of its unity
and appearance, regardless of the purpose it serves in the human praxis. This means that
the organization of any form of an object requires supervision and control in order to be
classified in any case as a clear and defined entity possessing size and properties that
correspond to its purposefulness in the human praxis.

The ways and methods of formation and organization of the shapes of the objects are
divided according to the content and the type that they hold as elements of reality. In any
case all these forms follow principles and rules, whose presence is recognized throughout
the area and volume they hold either as imaginary or material objects. Usually, the
process of their composition follows the principles of classification and subclass of the
components into a coherent entity, which generates the special character that
distinguishes the object as a separate species within diverse reality.

The main objective of the composing process is the establishment, in a skilful way, of a
teleological relationship between the components and the entity that is intended in the
entire form. Through this relationship one can see the progress of the organization of the
form as an executing rule, i.e. a general assortment of decisions and actions that
determine the location and layout of each individual element in the composition of the
shape of an object.

This course is an intentional act, because it aims at the production of the object as the end
and its form as the final result. During its development, all decisions on the composition
of form are tested in terms of maximum efficacy, i.e. successful construction without
faults or ambiguities that undermine the entity of any object as a category of our reality.

Given that the construction of an object is a creative activity, adherence to complex rules
means practically to give form to an object with the minimum waste of physical power
and matter. In simple words, the morphological yardstick that is followed is valueless
unless it is the shortest and most economical route to achieving the goal of arranging all
the active components in the right position and suitable organization, in order to reliably
set the form of the object.

Design in itself has been affirmed by both theorists and practitioners as a teleological
praxis, specially deriving in the moment someone abandons a normative heritage and
undertakes a way of acting, trusting own beliefs and intentions. This way, it is cultivated
by renewed trials and repeated failures or successes, corrections or modifications,
alternations or co-ordinations and many other kinds of operations.

To understand the distinguishing quality of Design, someone has firstly to approach its
essential and most inaccessible core of its practitioners: their voluntary predisposition, the
teleological way of reasoning, their improvised inspirations, intuitive intention and
indeterminable techniques. All these may be vague, obscure and undiscoverable for the
outsiders, because bringing an artistic work into the indisputable reality it constitutes a
pathway of ineffable and tacit endeavors that simply interchange within the art of
creation.

The art of creation proceeds as a practical factory within the realm of the materials and
their physical and aesthetical properties. Every artifact and artistic product consists of
concrete, measurable and objective proportions and texture. Following this pragmatic
view, any artistic form seems to be in intimate connection to skill demands and ability,
formulated by geometrical considerations such as volume, surface, balance, order and
other attributes.

Before some artistic product is made, its creator’s demands are already set as proper to
serve the art of creation. Any concept of a form’s objective attribution mediates a
scientific sense of descriptive and verifiable exactness.

Articulating the art of creation into a concrete and complete form of our knowledge,
implies that our educational dogma moves from the state of how a certain method should
be followed, to develop and attain an artistic creation, to the diligence of methodological
competence, skill and affectivity. Questioning all these teleologically, a series of
judgments emerges, that overthrows patterns of actions, predominant tactics and
methodological beliefs into the past. It is creativity, in virtue, when a designer transforms
a collection of objects into a new order of structure, because it firstly causes an aesthetic
judgment: an unrecorded value. Thus, a work of art appears as an extraordinary value,
which has enabled both skill and ability into existence. According to Ludwig
Wittgenstein, things and facts in the world are used to identify all operations, because
these things and facts are constituted as the things and facts they are, by human
purposefulness. To say that an engagement in the art of creation is actual, is to say that
one takes part in constituting an intention, a predisposition to act artistically.

But there is, however, another quite plausible activity in designing. This is what we are
used to calling the creation of art. As a more rewarding competence, it consists beyond
our motor ability: by visual, conceptive, cognitive and semiotic operations, which
proceed having the properties we usually ascribe to an aesthetic mind.

The artistic task here is to create non virtual realities. Every endeavor to verify artistic
reality in scientific or materialistic terms is frustrated here. Creation of art means, in
general, to keep the aforesaid frustration alive. In art we may assume that there does
exist a sky-hook, as David Pye has exemplified it. But how does the artist make possible
these properties and characteristics of any material objects, as for example, to its
hardness, ductility, stiffness or shape. And, if processing material means also altering
properties, as in hardening steel by heat, why then could not a sky be solid enough, where
a hook may be suspended?

As shown before by Pye’s example, the creation of art bases itself on justifications and
judgments. All artistic creativity has been released through fantasy and inspired
improvisations, in opposition to the consolidated, or given practice. Moreover, to deal
with established aesthetical practice, for instance, shows what kind of art product we are
expecting to get. So, creation of art means namely to handle certain objects under a main
judgment: works of art can exist as art works only within the context of teleological
justification among different kinds of objects. This kind of context is necessarily
presupposed when we identify and understand something as a distinct work of art. Thus,
it is obvious that only in the context of teleological judgments and considerations, can
aesthetical preconceptions and attitudes be developed.

Getting a further step in this present survey, we may presume that to master an artistic
concept means also to be able to do a design work of art. According to the teleological
point of view, a conceptual competence is always internally related to intentional
competence. Therefore, any Cartesian mind cannot find a reason to act in the creation of
art, as it would find in algebra. Only in the Cartesian logic there is conclusively one word
for a distinct color, as an ICD system has determined it for its users.

For all those who create an artistic work, in general, their different concepts about the
same distinct color, demand different competences of concept use. This implies that in
some sense these design practitioners do not experience quite the same reality. It is, for
instance, impossible for them to date the discovery of the same distinct color in
designing, exactly for the reason that their own concept of it has developed gradually and
in different ways during their education.

In this sense, moving design activity as artistic creativity closer to its objective, namely
the creation of artifacts and works of art, is a problem of re-creating teleologically the
design education. In our obligatory study programs, the main purpose is to proceed under
the scope of an authoritative and established instruction system. Whether a student or a
practitioner can or cannot do certain things, can normally be indifferent, in connection to
the fact that his acts or preparation in question, are subjects to norm. According to a
meta-theoretical consideration, the principle that “ought” entails “can”, cannot be decided
without first consulting facts about intentional ability. In design education, no works can
come into existence, unless certain criteria about art engagement have firstly been
answered. As professor Jerker Lundequist has once suggested in his book “Norm and
Model”, the following criteria can become of interest for the re-creation of art in applied
arts education.

• The criterion of authority: any authority in design factory derives from the
person who has the mandate or the knowledge to formulate, issue and provide
norms and methods to potential design practitioner. As known, every authority
orders, permits or prohibits a certain subject to act in specific occasions.
Instructing or introducing the practitioner to the norms and methods of making
design works, constitutes an alien engagement in art, based only on “know-how”s,
or patterns of applied artistic methodology. On the contrary, there is an
autonomous engagement whenever norms and methods derive from a self or an
authentic command. Let us, for the simplicity’s sake, call the first case an
heteronymous and the second an autonomous authority in applied art creativity.
 • The criterion of subjectivity: as a subject, in every design work, we understand
every practitioner, namely a person to whom a norm of design or an artistic
method is addressed to. A practitioner who conceives his own engagement in
design factory as a fact, is a subject positioned in the past tense. On the other
hand, only when he conceives himself in a state of being, may he assume that he
is a subject positioned in the present and the future tense.

• The criterion of occasion: occasion is a mention of location, place of span in

time, where a norm or a method is presented to design practitioners and enables
them to act artistically. To do a certain thing, or produce a certain state on a
particular occasion depends upon a practical consideration. Before we have
acquired the opportunity, we always refer our “can do”, to success or failure. At
first, we argue about it and then we decide on our engagement in the action. The
terms that are used in this argumentation are the practitioners “internal”
occasions, since any remaining terms used in this final decision constitute an
“external” occasion for him to act. In case a designer fails, because of some
unforeseen obstacles, the occasions to act are still embedded in his prior practical
decision. When a failure occurs, what simply helps him to act again, are the
unused terms he left back, in the argumentation about engaging himself in a
design activity.

• The criterion of application: this is constituted by all the conditions or

suppositions by which a design practitioner decides whether he may proceed or
not, according to a method or a prescription. Every decision of such an art is,
according to Georg Henrik von Wright, enrolled in anancastic (imperative) or
authentic reasoning. Prescriptions, for instance, are usually constructed by
categorical or hypothetical phrases as an order sounds “Do x”, or a conjecture of a
type “if x is valid, so act y”

In contradiction, the teleological reasoning is a syllogism which becomes justified ad

postum. When a certain design practitioner aims to attain an end, his endeavor seems to
be followed by a teleological explanation:
for instance X (a certain practitioner) intends to attain the end C (a composition of form
for a product of use).
X has reasons to feel that he cannot fulfill his intentions, if he omits to do the act A
(select and combine a certain number of archetypes).
Thus: X carries out the act A, as a norm of design in artistic creativity.

The teleological explanation demonstrates how an application takes part in designing

practice. It is worth noticing, that only when a creative work has been carried out, may
we assert its practitioners authentic reasoning, which coincides with the teleological state
of an artistic application. In this situation, it becomes also obvious to conclude that any
artistic work cannot be completely justified, without a “reason d’ etre” (a reason for
existing), by which a designer’s purpose, decisiveness and inventiveness have been
tested.
It has already been shown that an intended design work differs in its own procedure and
causality. All reasoning and thoughts, along with the developing of any kind of design
product, seem to be connected with a type of knowledge, which very remarkably Polanyi
had ascribed as a “tacit” form of it. This is what we suggest, as teachers, to our students,
as masters to practitioners, to focus our interest on, and elaborate as much as it is possible
in our art education.

A “technical” praxis in design education, demands, in general, an heteronymous

authority, a subject positioned in the past time, the external occasions and a series of
categorical reasoning as indispensable components for artistic engagement and work.

On the other hand, it seems to be re-generating to proceed the model of a ‘teleological’

praxis in design and applied art creativity. In this scope a context of justification occurs in
case an artistic work is undertaken by an autonomous authority, a subject positioned in
the present time, wherein internal occasions and authentic reasoning take place. It is
obvious, that a practitioner’s position becomes merely like that of a child, who stands
aside and does not want to join the game of his playmates. He feels like a stranger to this
community of practitioners for the sake of his own intentional and reasonable
authenticity, which might be regarded with disapproval. And this is, finally, according to
my own point of view, what a design practitioner tragically has to experience, trying to
attain a concept renewal and an innovative inspiration for the sake of art by creative
authentic work in design activity.

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