Making tangible connections between theory and practice, ideas and form, this book encourages debate about the artistic, conceptual, and cultural significance of the way things look. What are the metaphysical concepts at the heart of design education, theory, and philosophy? Why do we assume that design is impossible to teach?

This book challenges the traditional foundations of perception and takes an imaginative, radical approach, setting itself apart from the traditions of analytical philosophy, evolutionary psychology, and phenomenology which underpin much of current design theory and discourse. The new definition of perception produces startling consequences for conceptions of language, intelligence, meaning, the senses, emotions and subjectivity. This is an innovative, fresh view on design and how we can improve it for both practitioners and students in the architecture and design fields as well as philosophers.

Kathryn Moore has lectured and published extensively on design quality, theory, education and practice. She is past President of the Landscape Institute, UK representative of IFLA, a design consultant, and is Professor at the Birmingham Institute of Art and Design, Birmingham City University, UK.

Foreword Paul Shepheard Preface 1. Introduction 2. The Sensory Interface and Other Myths and Legends 3. Teaching the Unknowable 4. Aesthetics: The Truth, The Whole Truth and Universal Truth 5. Objectivity Without Neutrality 6. Studied Ignorance 7. Seeing is Believing 8. Theory into Practice. Bibliography