Dasein Versus Design: The Problematics of Turning Making Into Thinking

Building on suggestions from the work of Martin Heidegger, a distinction is made between two ways of being in the world. One is associated with the unplanned particularity and care of Dasein, another with the planning and thinking-out of design; the former is characteristic of a more traditional way of life, the latter of contemporary life. Included are brief etymologies of `Dasein' and `design', along with some reflections on the two-fold history of design of internal structure and surface appearance (that is, of engineering and aesthetic design, respectively). The conclusion sketches out a problematics of engineering design as involving a disengagement from fundamental human experience, and suggests the need to discriminate between authenticity and inauthenticity in the world of design.