2.2 Thinking Design Meta’s Through: Thomistic Retrievals
Let me put the point across in another way, by differentiating more sharply this new domain of (or: aspect of) things that can be designed. The key to appreciating this new domain for design is to grasp that we are now looking beyond the porphyrean confines of all those principles which determine what-each-thing-is and modifying each of them essentially (whether substantially or accidentally). Typically, design focuses on shaping the essence of things – either by changing a thing’s substantial form or else by refining its accidents. This much is easily visible to designers, and understandably so. But ‘what a thing is’ is not all that there is to design. Instead, we are now also interested to modify the principles that determine that-such-a-thing-is. All this may seem rather opaque at this stage, but the general idea is as follows.
The deliverances of metaphysical reflection supply the resources for reshaping what any being’s existence (esse: is-ness) means. It allows us to re-design what each being’s reality qua sign can point to. As has been shown (Chua 2008: 820-826; 2012a: 570-573), the transcendental presuppositions of the putative normativity of first principles of practical reasons, and hence of ethical criticality, also imply as a corollary what is traditionally defended by the thomistic tradition as “the real distinction between essence and existence.” (Chua, 2008: 823-824; 2012a: 573) As early as in the medieval text De Ente et Essentia (1968 [13th Century]), Aquinas argued that all beings (ens) were in fact composed of two principles: essence (essentia) and existence (esse). Each being’s essence determines what the being is, whereas the existence the being had accounted for the fact that the being is, rather than not, and so stood out of nothingness. This he further demonstrated was not merely a conceptual separation, but a real one: meaning, that as things really are, there are really two principles really distinct in each being (Aquinas, 1968, Chua, 2000a; 2000b; 2008: 823-824; 2012a; Wippel, 1984:115). The existential principle, existence (esse), was further shown to be something which was received from an infinite source of existence, and hence all beings participate or have a share of this Existence, which must of necessity exist. This infinite Existence was clearly identified with God, since nothing except God was unlimited in this manner. These metaphysical claims are fully entailed by the affirmation of putatively robust, normative practical reasons, which in turn ground ethical criticality in ‘design’ focally understood and significally translated (Chua, 2008: 820-826; 2012a).
If we look at such a metaphysics, and what they show, we might see nothing more than a hair-splitting, scholastic account of God’s existence, the onto-theological structure of beings, and the close relationship between God and beings by way of each being’s participatory sharing (participatio) in Infnite Existence, or God. But this latter immediately implies another affordance of beings: that beings point to God by way of their existence (esse). In other words, a metaphysics like this is not merely an account of God and beings, but also of each being’s signing, by virtue of its existence, of the God Who Is Existence (Esse), and Who is deeply part of the world of beings which He ongoingly holds in existence (also Gully, 1961:42-43). For: metaphysics establishes the close relation-ship between God and created beings, and therefore also leads semiosically from beings to God. Meaning, metaphysics makes beings signs of God, and functions as the relating interpretant which connects beings to God semiosically. Thanks to (thomistic) metaphysics, beings are no more merely beings, but are also now transformed into signs of a God Who Is present. They have been designed qua signs. Indeed, for the metaphysically informed, all beings, insofar as they exist and participate of existence from God, can now be designed into signs of an ever present God. In other words, such metaphysical truths retrieved from Aquinas’ thought imply opportunities for designing, viz. the practical transformation of all beings as signs. Knowing how to analyze beings as existents (ens) participating in the God Who Is Existence (Esse) means that one also knows how to shape, at once, any and every being into signs of God and his creative presence in the world. Unlike Aquinas our task is not theological speculation – or perhaps we should say that our primary design goal is not that. Rather it is to design critically, wherever that leads us, and one consequent trajectory of such critical design thinking is precisely the semiotic shaping of the existence (esse) of beings.
Furthermore, this task to design the existence (esse) of beings and by implication beings (ens) semiotically is not just an optional “clever idea”. Instead it is the fulfillment of the “criticality” in each “designer” that must find expression in a designerly semiosic transubstantiation (Chua, 2013c; also Kress, 2000: 15) that seeks to write out and to exhaust the designs of beings without remainder, so that nothing is wasted. Particularly, if design “criticality” is to be a constant state of being of a designer and not just a one-off act, then such designing will not rest until it has fully explored all design projects other than those design projects which any corrupted logic of the market allows. Hence after designing the essence of beings (constituted by each being’s substance and accidents), a “designer” must therefore also think of ways to design the existence (esse) of beings. For such designers, design unevitably includes and welcomes the project of metaphysical writing about ‘beings’, retrieved from its medieval uses for contemporary design (c.f. Kress, ibid.) of signs. I.e., for the good designer and good designing that seeks to promote and realize, fully and exhaustively what ought to be, the design of signs in metaphysical writing is not an option. It is however and again, first and foremost a project in design, and not primarily one on onto-theology although it employs the latter’s insights. Specifically, such thomistic, metaphysically informed shaping of new signs and new meanings of beings is a semiotic-design project. (see Chua 2012b) I.e., this is a design of what beings can afford to point to in semiosis, and hence, mean.