If we call the use of technology to help humans live well as a whole human-centered design, its origins can be traced back to ancient Greek philosophy. According to Aristotle in the Nicomachean Ethics, while specialized carpentars can make parts of a house, it is a higher level of technology that integrates such skills that ultimately produces well-being for humans. Aristotle defines the technology as “ the work of the master carpenter,” and the master who engages in this work as “the carpenter of carpenters” (Nicomachean Ethics, 1094a19). The metaphor of the master carpenter is also developed in the beginning of the Metaphysics (981a30). Aristotle claims that the specialized knowledge represented by the artisans is that of the slaves, while the total knowledge represented by the master is that of champions. Incidentally, master here is a metaphor for philosopher, whose knowledge means philosophical knowledge (sophia).

According to the tradition of the Athenian school of Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle, the best things for human beings are not money, health, or reputation. As they are just means that could also be applicable for a wrong purpose, the ultimate purpose realized by the means is decisively important. If technology provides only the means, then higher technology is the one that explores the ultimate purpose of human life and is concerned with the ultimate purpose to realize it. According to Aristotle, the purpose of human life is to realize a state (hexis) in which human beings develop their own latent capabilities, called functioning (ergon). Aristotle defines such a condition as ultimate happiness (eudaimonia) for humans.

This ancient Greek tradition was the origin of Western-centrism, which privileges the “human” over animals, nature as well as slaves, people of other cultures. According to Aristotle, technologies for the security of the body were no different from the ones by which animals preserve themselves, and subordinating humans to these technologies meant confining them within the realm of natural necessity, animalizing them, and destroying their humanity. In Western-centered thinking, human beings must use technology to break free from natural necessity and form human freedom, or a liberal personality in that sense, and the technology for this purpose is truly technology for humanity, that is, Western art and technology in excellency.

This view of technology gave rise to a sense of crisis in the industrial era of the 19th century and the later periods, as the development of technology to create the conditions for humanity might rather destroy the humanity itself that should be its goal. In the late 19th century, Ruskin and Morris criticized the ornamentation of design brought by factories as threatening humanity by linking it to capitalism and imperialism. In the 20th century, functionalism, that is, the idea that design should follow a formative principle that eliminates illusionary effects from products and develops the potential of human beings and materials (i.e., their functions), became the mainstream. In this respect, after Ruskin and Morris, the human centerd view of design is defined as a self-criticism of automatically advancing technology driven by social institutions.

Since the 20th century, as design has become more scientific and more connected to academic knowledge, the human-centered view of design has developed in the form of the human science. However, if physiology and biology study the existence of human beings as animals, and economics and social science study the social self-preservation as an extension of biological self-preservation, then the design based solely on these studies will turn humans into animal beings. Therefore, the humanities that treat humans from the perspective of their subjectivity, which differs from that of animals, and especially the human sciences such as psychology, business administration, pedagogy, and sociology that focus on the laws of the intentionnality of mind, will play a central role in design as academic knowledge (ergonomics, subjective evaluation methods and statistics).

In contrast, since the latter half of the 20th century, with the emergence of environmental problems and the rise of post-colonialism, there has been a rise in de-anthropocentric thought that views humans not in terms of their specificity but in continuity with nature and plants and animals, and this has had a profound impact on design. According to these movements, design based on anthropocentrism, even if it sees human beings as privileged beings distinguished from animals and plants and intends to design based on their uniqueness, does not it ultimately fix human subjectivity within a lawful and statistical necessity and try to objectify and manipulate it? At the same time, does not this design justifiy the use of plants, animals, and nature (or other cultures) only as materials and means to realize Western humanity?

Post human-centered design views itself not as an expression of the free will of humans, but as something that is generated autonomously by the interaction of the environment and living organisms, including chance (affordance, autopoiesis); it views design as a series of on-the-spot devising (bricolage) rather than a prior rational planning; it views humans and their culture in terms of the repetitive rhythms of living organisms, rather than as the result of rational thought, and it collaborates with environmental ethics, which critiques traditional ethics on norms among human beings.

(KOGA Toru)