Designing a Design Philosophy...  

glass artist,
i will look for the book.

a worthy pursuit indeed
i'm encouraged to read here about design within the much larger context of integrity. that aspiring element alone reveals a depth in our humanity which cannot be overvalued.
this is the very reason "everything relates to everything". any attempt at compartmentalizing everyday life is artificial. it is helpful and arguably necessary for scientific analysis; and since we live in homes, schools, shops, villages and cities, what is extracted in the lab must be reassembled and reintroduced to be of any practical value.
the quest for "a design philosophy" is essential because the way we think matters. really. that's almost too simple to mention, but can it really be overstated when so much in our world is disconnected?
the discipline of drafting such a position--if done so with an admirable level of completeness--requires genuine honesty, courage, intelligence, social responsibility, self-awareness, and overall critical thinking.
i think there are so many words which--if simply listed out and referred to often--can serve to define the rules of engagement as this process is pursued. doubtless there will be varying opinions--and even some "sacred cows"--encountered along the way, yet even the occurrence of those [if processed respectfully] will contribute toward the overall end result.
so many thoughts ... not enough time right now.
bottom line:: pretty clocks are nice [yes, i have a few myself], but we do aspire to something much greater than the things we own and admire. kudos to those who consider this a worthy pursuit. strength to all in the journey.

The task....
to formulate a design philosophy seems far too impressive to even make a serious attempt and yet, the arguments to do so are quite compelling especially when formulated by dcwilson.
I am not the right person to contrbute to this. I am neither educated to do so, nor am I able to formulate properly my own vision other than by reacting on "clusters of anecdotical evidence".
This being said, I suspect that the very start of any design philosophy should be to state that we as human beings have this innate capacity to imagine better material conditions than the ones we are living in and that we also have the capacity to formulate the means by which we can reach that improuved condition.
In order to fully understand what design is we would have to look at a number of notions used in this first statement.
What is exactly: "to imagine".
What constitutes "material conditions" and are they indeed clearly separated from other (spiritual etc.) conditions.
What is "better" and for whom is it better.
What constitutes the "capacity to formulate"..and more specifically: when and what transforms this capacity to formulate from a simple wish to a professional act.
But maybe there are more of these initial questions...
at least it is a start.

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Hi Glassartist!
Nice to have you here again, and nice what you said.
Nice what you said, and I share your feelings.
Strong manifesto condensed in a too small bottle.
If it,s your own manifesto I wound,t say nothing more.
But now if those are "some ideas to comment", as you said, I,d say:
About the socialistic idea: you are right, but..... it didn't worked!, O.K., you could say try again, to insist.
We could look at that interesting thing that happen (some of them you mentioned):
Designers with socialist ideas produced ?wide access to design through low cost (efficiently produced) works?(for the poor and middle classes), but finally ended ?into luxury items? (for the rich).
I,m trying to study those very interesting cases. To me if we try again, it will happen the same again. So studying this we could think what,s better to do.
PS: I think I,ll have to order Cradle to cradle trough Amazon.
Kdc:
About you said:
"""so many thoughts ... not enough time right now."""
Absolutely true.
( or may be someone / anytime would have enough syntaxes/synthesis to find the right words/concepts. (may be azurechiken,s synthesis then 🙂 )
Koen, I hope you agree,
I,ll add this article (you already posted)
I want to add this link to this thread because I think fits very well here.
I consider it on my top ten manifesto,s list, and influencing a lot.
Between Top ten manifestos:
Am I just seeing things - or is the modernist apartheid regime still in place? By Jan Michl
http://www.geocities.com/janmichl/eng.seeingthings.html

questions determine answers...
koen is a wily one.

Mani -fest = Social design
100% design + 100% content = 100% agree
Thanks P&A!
http://www.designaddict.com/design_addict/blog/index.cfm/2007/12/10/Utre...