Michalle Gal

This essay proposes a visualist alternative to intentionalist functionalism in design theory, challenging its assumptions of stable function and linear relationships between a designer’s intent, an object’s form, and its proper use. Functionalism’s focus on predetermined functions fails to align with the dynamic and generative nature of everyday life, where design objects invite diverse, spontaneous engagements through their visual affordances. The visualist perspective emphasizes the expressive and emergent qualities of design objects, including the non-functional visual properties of function, arguing that their aesthetic and perceptual dimensions play a central role in shaping human interactions. By critiquing the ontological and epistemological illusion of functional stability, the essay proposes a design philosophy that acknowledges the richness of everyday encounters, the fluidity of functions, and the constructivist nature of perception.

This essay proposes a visualist ontological framework for understanding design, rooted fundamentally in the theories of emergent properties and affordances. Opposing functionalist and intentionalist paradigms, the framework underscores design’s visuality and relational engagement as its core ontological elements. The concepts of emergent properties and affordances are presented as deeply interconnected, reflecting their philosophical and practical relationship within the ontology of design. Emergent properties are conceptualized as qualities that do not reside intrinsically within individual components but instead arise through the dynamic relational interactions among parts within a system, often exemplified in complex, non-linear systems. I demonstrate, however, that even singular, discrete design objects encapsulate complexity and exhibit emergent qualities. Design’s ontological structure extends beyond its planned form to include these emergent qualities and open affordances rooted in visual surface configurations and relational engagement, because design inherently exists in relations – not only with users but also with other objects and environments. Relatedly, affordances elucidate how visual and material configurations invite specific actions, enabling meanings and functions to be continually redefined through ongoing interactions. The integration of these theories offers a comprehensive, non-reductionist account of design’s ontology, emphasizing its inherently relational, dynamic, and open-ended nature as central to its identity and operative capacity.

This essay proposes a visualist ontological framework for understanding design, rooted fundamentally in the theories of emergent properties and affordances. Opposing functionalist and intentionalist paradigms, the framework underscores design’s visuality and relational engagement as its core ontological elements. The concepts of emergent properties and affordances are presented as deeply interconnected, reflecting their philosophical and practical relationship within the ontology of design. Emergent properties are conceptualized as qualities that do not reside intrinsically within individual components but instead arise through the dynamic relational interactions among parts within a system, often exemplified in complex, non-linear systems. I demonstrate, however, that even singular, discrete design objects encapsulate complexity and exhibit emergent qualities. Design’s ontological structure extends beyond its planned form to include these emergent qualities and open affordances rooted in visual surface configurations and relational engagement, because design inherently exists in relations – not only with users but also with other objects and environments. Relatedly, affordances elucidate how visual and material configurations invite specific actions, enabling meanings and functions to be continually redefined through ongoing interactions. The integration of these theories offers a comprehensive, non-reductionist account of design’s ontology, emphasizing its inherently relational, dynamic, and open-ended nature as central to its identity and operative capacity.

This essay engages Diarmuid Costello’s Aesthetics after Modernism while critically reasserting the case against conceptualism in art. Costello’s attempt to reconcile formalism with conceptualist aesthetics is acknowledged as rigorous and valuable, but I argue that the proposed synthesis risks diluting the distinctive power of visual forms. Conceptual and Readymade art, though often framed as extending Kantian “aesthetic ideas,” are in practice too easily exhausted by their reducible concepts, lacking the inexhaustibility of form-based aesthetic experience. Against the linguistic turn in philosophy of art, I maintain that the privileging of cognition, language, and meaning has marginalized the richness of visual and perceptual experience. Drawing on Greenberg, Pater, and Lessing, I emphasize medium-specificity, the irreducibility of form, and the depth of aesthetic judgment beyond conceptual content. Whereas Costello is willing to integrate conceptuality into aesthetics, I contend that reconciliation lies instead in reaffirming the primacy of perceptual and formal dimensions, which surpass meaning and resist linguistic reduction. In today’s visual age, saturated by screens and images, the philosophy of art must return to the autonomy and depth of visual forms, rather than apologetically absorbing conceptualism.

This article presents a visualist theory of design that contrasts with the instrumental rationalism that dominates the philosophy of design. My critique of rationalism is based on two omnipresent and paradigmatic phenomena in design: the variety of forms for one single function and the variety of uses of one form. Instrumental rationalism defines design as a coherent line that runs from a rational goal to the proper means and proper use of an object. Therefore, this philosophy values design according to its efficiency. However, the diverse aesthetic forms of design objects and the creative ways that users engage with them. do not follow the instrumental rational plan, but rather aesthetic motivations and design’s visual affordance. I argue that the variety of forms of design objects and emergent uses are often more substantial than rationality in the constitution of design. Claiming that these encounters are innate to our essence and ontology as visual beings, I offer a visualist anti-rationalist theory of design and human nature. Keywords: instrumental rationalism, form, affordance, emergent properties, Visualism

Design is an omnipresent, aesthetic-functional phenomenon, one that is culturally loaded and broadly influential. Since ancient times, design has played a crucial role in shaping both our intimate daily experiences and broader societal structures. It influences behavior, preferences, cultural norms and movements, political or personal identities, and economic systems. Today, design is not only a thriving field of practice but also an evolving area of academic inquiry, one that is becoming a self-standing discipline. It is, of course, important to define ‘design’ . But, in developing our understanding of it, we also need to analyze its relationships to associated fields, such as ontology, cognition and perception, ethics, politics, social conduct, fine or popular art, everyday aesthetics, and science and technology. The special issue Design and its Relations takes up this mission. We aim to reveal and study the interactions between design as an aesthetic-functional field and various auxiliary concepts, ideas, phenomena, and disciplines. The essays in the special issue thus address a range of design affiliations. These include both (a) relatively abstract affiliations—such as aesthetics, perception and appreciation, beauty, ethics, science, rationalism, and the idea of abstractness itself—and (b) more direct topics, including design’s relations to photographic systems and even cultural views of parenthood given through the evolution of crib shapes (which is a typical substantiation of design’s impact on humanity’s foundations). ARTICLES Introduction Michalle Gal Design and Definitions: Reflections on the Question of “What is Design?” Thomas Leddy Design and Tacit Aesthetics: Design as the Art of Objects-in-Use Pauline von Bonsdorff Design and Aesthetic Appreciation: Form, Functionality, Performativity Matilde Carrasco Barranco Design and Beauty: Functional Style Jane Forsey Design and Value: The Ethical Nature of Beautiful Design Panos Paris Design Science and Aesthetics Saul Fisher Design and Rationalism: A Visualist Critique of Instrumental Rationalism Michalle Gal Design and the Constitution of Semantic or Conceptual Meaning Gregory Galford and Jeremy Barris Design and the Modern Crib: Hygiene, Configuration, Materiality, and Social Status Gal Ventura Design and Photography: Pinhole, Perpendicular, Programmatic Yanai Toister Design and Abstraction Jeffrey Strayer Notes on Contributors

This book offers a new definition of metaphor-as an ontological and visual construction, whose roots are external visual forms, and its motivation is our attachment to forms. This definition, which Michalle Gal names “visualist,” challenges the ruling conceptualist theory of metaphors and places a new emphasis on how we experience rather than understand metaphors. In doing so, she responds to the visual turn that is taking place in literature and the media, demanding that the visual become a site of philosophical analysis. This focus on the external visual world allows Gal to employ visual theories to capture the essence of metaphor. She looks beyond conceptual or semantic mechanism, and returns to theories of Arnheim and Gombrich and the current evolution of ideas about the visual or material and embodied cognition. Proposing to see visual metaphors in their basic form, she uses a new externalist terminology of ontology, visuality, composition, affordance, construction, and emergence. Setting out a new theory that takes into account that humans are visual no less than cognitive creatures, Visual Metaphors and Aesthetics lays the foundation for a new vocabulary to talk about metaphors.

This essay critically engages with Thomas E. Wartenberg’s Thoughtful Images: Illustrating Philosophy through Art, examining the ways in which visual images function within philosophical contexts. While Wartenberg traces the historical development of philosophical illustrations—from ancient manuscripts to modern graphic philosophy—the essay emphasizes the ongoing debate between the dominance of language and the potential of visuality. It explores how, despite Wartenberg’s recognition of visual art’s importance, there remains an underlying influence of linguistic–conceptualist perspectives, which tend to subordinate visual forms to language. The analysis also considers how certain artworks and media, such as comics or concept-based paintings, challenge traditional hierarchies by demonstrating the autonomous or even primary role of visuality in philosophical expression. Overall, the essay advocates for a more balanced appreciation of visual philosophy, highlighting its capacity to express complex ideas and reflect our culture in ways that language alone may not fully capture.

This essay characterizes the perception of the visual hybrid as nonconceptual, introducing the terminology of nonconceptual content theory to aesthetics. The visual hybrid possesses a radical but nonetheless exemplary aesthetic composition and is well established in culture, art, and even design. The essay supplies a philosophical analysis of the results of cross-cultural experiments, showing that while categorization or conceptual hierarchization kicks in when the visual hybrids are juxtaposed with linguistic descriptions, no conceptual scheme takes effect when participants are presented with mere visual hybrids. In isolation, the hybrids do not lend themselves to classification. I draw four conclusions from these experimental outcomes: 1. The perception of visual hybrids follows the structure of a nonconceptual mental content, because the original categories or concepts of the hybrids’ components are not combined into one, and their properties are not applied to one another, therefore none of the components reconstructs the other such that it is introduced to a new category. 2. Language freezes the hybridity of the visual hybrid into conceptuality. 3. Given that language has a freezing effect in the case of an extreme visual phenomenon such as the hybrid, it is all the more restraining in moderate artistic compositions, such as visual metaphors, in which properties of one component (the source) are applied to the other (the target). In those, nonconceptuality emerges from relatively organized compositions, forms, and relations, and from the dependence of objects and their properties on perceptual context. 4. Thus, the nonconceptualist terminology is suitable for the analysis of aesthetic perception in general and aesthetic perception’s relation to language. Keywords aesthetics, perception, nonconceptual content, hybrids, visual metaphors

ntroduction to Design Theory introduces a comprehensive, systematic, and didactic outline of the discourse of design. Designed both as a course book and a source for research, this textbook methodically covers the central concepts of design theory, definitions of design, its historical milestones, and its relations to culture, industry, body, ecology, language, society, gender and ideology. Demonstrated by a shift towards the importance of the sociocultural context in which products are manufactured and embedded, this book showcases design theory as an emerging sub-discipline of design, unique in its practice-based approach and its broad perception of design. It offers an in-depth understanding of the central concepts, such as "form" and "function", "theory" and "practice", through a discussion of key case studies and historical examples, such as the advent of the view of design in antiquity, the introduction of mass production to modernist design or the ideological shifts in design in the mid-twentieth century, as well as analytical tools for further dissection and learning in practice. With a focus on a combination of several theoretical knowledge foundations — aesthetics and philosophy, critical theories, cultural studies, design history and design anthropology — the reader is enabled to approach design as a central pivot around which contemporary culture revolves, reflecting, reaffirming or challenging social and cultural structures. Aimed towards undergraduate and postgraduate students, as well as teachers and scholars, from across the design disciplines, Introduction to Design Theory invites readers to engage with design from an interdisciplinary perspective, departing from the traditional academic compartmentalisation of practice, history and philosophy.

This chapter presents the formalist account of the moral status of an artwork as an aesthetically significant and autonomous form, with due emphasis on the Anglo-American art-for-art’s-sake aesthetic, as it developed between 1870 and 1960. The author shows that the formalist art-is-above-morals approach is a substantive moral stance in itself. Formalist aesthetics is usually presented in the literature as evincing a purist indifference to ethics, construing moral properties as external to art, in opposition to the internal pure properties of art’s composition. The chapter demonstrates that this is a misrepresentation of the complex formalist prescriptive idea of the relations between art and ethics. Through its autonomy and imperviousness to external co-opting—which is accomplished by due focus on aesthetic form—art on the formalist account is held to be a paradigm of the liberalist principles of individual freedom and self-fulfillment, thus an inherent means to the good.

This chapter presents the meeting points and conflicts between Arthur Danto’s philosophy of art and George Dickie’s avowedly succeeding theory. Its focus is on the internalist-externalist debate on the ontology of the artwork as created and perceived within the artworld. It shows that both Danto and Dickie developed anti-formalist theories, that contributed to the demise of aesthetic modernism. Inverting the formalist distinction between internal and external properties of the artwork, they classified the sensuous properties of the artwork as secondary in its essence and identity. Accordingly, Danto and Dickie’s definitions of art emerged from the challenge “to be consistent with art appearing in every possible way.” Both negated the Neo-Wittgensteinians’s proposal to forgo the project of defining art and found the then-new pluralism to be revealing of the essence of art, directing philosophy to art’s nonexhibited infrastructure – beyond the reach of the eye. Across from this, the chapter presents their opposing ideas as revealed through different analyses of the concept of the “artworld”: as an intellectual sphere by Danto versus an institutional one by Dickie. Danto’s internalist/intentionalist ontology begins with the mental and stretches to its embodying material. Opposing it, Dickie’s externalist ontology points to social practices as constituting the artwork, which is attributed with the status of “arthood” by agents in its social sphere. Accordingly, I claim, Danto’s ontology is more versatile than Dickie’s.

This essay presents the Aestheticism of the 19th century as the foundational movement of modernist-formalist aesthetics of the 20th century. The main principle of this movement is what I denominate “productive opacity”. Aestheticism has not been recognized as a philosophical aesthetic theory. However, its definition of artwork as an exclusive kind of form—a deep, opaque form—is among the most precise ever given in the discipline. This essay offers an interpretation of aestheticism as a formalist theory, referred to here as “deep formalism”, focusing on the thinking of leading aestheticists, Walter Pater, Oscar Wilde, and James Whistler. These three thinkers defined artwork as a form saturated with an inextricable content, viz. opaque form.

In view of the current progress of what has been named the ‘visual turn’ or the ‘pictorial turn’,1 it is exciting to witness Sam Rose’s return to early aesthetic formalist-modernism, which was so passionate about the medium, its appearance, and visuality. Rose’s project shares a recent inclination to think anew the advent of aesthetic modernism.2 It is founded on the presumption that visual art ought to be – and actually has always been – theoretically subsumed under one meta-project. This meta-project does not necessarily have a clear telos, but it does have a history. In support of this view, Rose appeals to Stanley Cavell’s claim that ‘only masters of a game, perfect slaves to that project, are in a position to establish conventions which better serve its essence. This is why deep revolutionary changes can result from attempts to conserve a project, to take it back to its idea, keep it in touch with its history’ (p. 155). According to Rose’s post-formalist view, the idea of art’s meta-project is the idea of form.

This paper proposes to define metaphor as a visual-material structure, the sphere of which is ontological rather than cognitive or conceptual. It argues that the essence of metaphor, as either an aesthetic or a communicative unit or both, resides in the qualitative dimension and appearance, or even materiality, of the metaphorical medium and its form. The paper thus offers a new theory of metaphor, focusing on the medium of metaphor, which composes and transfigures or reconstructs its target anew: a composition that is prior to understanding or conceptualizing the target. In doing so, the paper presents a formalist ontology of metaphors, established via an externalist account of metaphors, as opposed to the prevailing cognitivist-conceptualist account which I characterize as internalist. The various kinds of metaphor – linguistic, poetic, visual or material – are based on their external structure, rather than an internal-conceptual mechanism of understanding, as assumed by a significant segment of the literature. Visual metaphor, therefore, is the paradigmatic kind of metaphor, the analysis of which can be generalized to other kinds of metaphor. Furthermore, the paper tries to overcome the current discrepancy between the formalist character of the metaphorical medium and the dominance of cognitivist and conceptualist theories of metaphor. Challenging these, I claim that if the identity of metaphor is indeed based on its composition, then it is actually based on its aesthetic qualities. That is to say, not only are there autonomous visual or material metaphors, that are not based on linguistic or conceptual ones, but linguistic and conceptual metaphors are based on visuality: they are enabled by the structural possibilities offered by visual media.

The paper analyzes the visual aspect of metaphors, offering a new theory of metaphor that characterizes its syntactic structure, material composition and visuality as its essence. It will accordingly present the metaphorical creating or transfiguring, as well as conceiving or understanding, of one thing as a different one, as a visual ability. It is a predication by means of producing non-conventional compositions – i.e., by compositional, or even aesthetic, means. This definition is aimed to apply to the various kinds of metaphors: conceptual, linguistic, visual, and material. It will thus challenge the definition of metaphor as a conceptual or linguistic phenomenon in nature that is based on its semantic mechanism, broad concepts, and cognitive value. Those definitions have been prevalent since the second half of 20th century, under the influence of the philosophy of language, and later of cognitive studies.

This book offers, for the first time in aesthetics, a comprehensive account of aestheticism of the 19<SUP>th</SUP> century as a philosophical theory of its own right. Taking philosophical and art-historical viewpoints, this cross-disciplinary book presents aestheticism as the foundational movement of modernist aesthetics of the 20<SUP>th</SUP> century. Emerging in the writings of the foremost aestheticists - Oscar Wilde, Walter Pater, James Whistler, and their formalist successors such as Clive Bell, Roger Fry, and Clement Greenberg - aestheticism offers a uniquely synthetic definition of art. It captures the artwork’s relations between form and content, art’s independent ontology and autonomy, art’s internal completeness, criticism, immunity to recruitment, the uniqueness of each medium, and musicality, as well as the logical-theoretical affiliation of art for art’s sake to epistemology, ethics and philosophy of language.<BR> Those are used by Michalle Gal to formulate a definition of art in terms of a theory of Deep Formalism, setting aestheticism, which aspires to preserve the artistic medium, as a critique of the current linguistic-conceptual aesthetics that developed after the linguistic turn of aesthetics.