In Bruno Latour’s essay “A Cautious Pro- metheus? A Few Steps Toward a Phi- losophy of Design” he discusses the five advantages of the concept of ‘design’. The first advantage is that design implies a sense of modesty which is advanta- geous to that of building or constructing an object. He explains how design is a post Promethean theory, as design emerged when we began to realize the need to redesign all the objects sur- rounding us for the better. The second advantage that Latour explores is de- sign’s attention to detail which demon- strates a sense of skillfulness and pre- cision. The third advantage is that design explores a sense of meaning and is sym- bolic. The forth aspect of design is that it never begins from scratch, design is always based on existing knowledge to make things more user friendly, more sustainable and more efficient. As Latour explains “to design is to redesign”. The final advantage of design is that it in- volves the ethical…show more content… He explains how design connects materiality with a sense of morality. This is a very important fac- tor as everyday artifacts, landscape, cities, genes and societies are to be redesigned to improve the way we live and to solve problems we may face. Latour also explores the ideas of Sloter- dijk’s philosophy stating that he is the go-to philosopher for design. Sloterdijk resolves the modernist ideas of fact ver- sus values and nature versus culture. Latour concludes by raising an import- ant question to designers: “where are the visualization tools that allow the contradictory and controversial nature of matters of concern to be represent- ed”. He argues that critiques and de- constructions of an object will not help find alternative ways of designing. He suggests that instead, tools are required to capture what has been the concealed practices of modernist innovations. He concludes by stating that “objects have always been projects; matters of fact have always been matters of concern”
