Metodo

International Studies in Phenomenology and Philosophy

Journal | Volume | Article

216816

Design for community

toward a communitarian ergonomics

Taylor Dotson

pp. 139-157

Abstract

This paper explores how the designed world could be better supportive of better communal ways of relating. In pursuit of this end, I put the philosophy of technology dealing with the role that technologies play in shaping, directing, mediating, and legislating human action in better communication with a diverse literature concerning community. I argue that community ought to viewed as composed of three interrelated dimensions: experience, structure, and practice. Specifically, it is a psychological sense evoked via a particular arrangement of ties and constellation of social practices guided, at its best, by phronetic reasoning. It is a mode of social being that I set in opposition to networked individualism. I examine the existent and potential communitarian ergonomics of the design of contemporary urban spaces and network devices. However, I conclude that artifacts remain only one part of the picture. A communally ergonomic mode of being requires not only compatible artifacts and built spaces but also an institutional context supportive of community as an economic and political entity.

Publication details

Published in:

(2013) Philosophy & Technology 26 (2).

Pages: 139-157

DOI: 10.1007/s13347-013-0100-4

Full citation:

Dotson Taylor (2013) „Design for community: toward a communitarian ergonomics“. Philosophy & Technology 26 (2), 139–157.