While preparing for my teaching I am doing some reading and some thinking. I have this reoccurring idea that I know is not new to me but it keeps coming back, and that is the idea of the complexity of the particular . In our book "The Design Way" we use the concept of the "ultimate particular" when we discuss the nature of design. We write: " The outcome of a specific design process, such as a car, a curriculum, or an organizational structure, is an ultimate particular. It is something unique. It is not the universal car, the universal organizational structure, or curriculum. We are creating a particular, which, when taken together with other particulars, makes up the whole of our experienced reality." we also give some examples of this: "Distinctions between what is true (e.g., universal or general) and what is real (e.g., particular, full particular and ultimate particular) can be made in the following ways. A painting by Cézanne is rea...
Interaction Design, HCI, Philosophy of Design, Technology and Society