Technological Allusivity: Appreciating

and Teaching the Role of Aesthetics in

Engineering Design
Charles C. Adams, Associate Professor of Engineering
Dordt College

Abstract:
Is there an aesthetic dimension to engineering design? Is aesthetic sensitivity a
characteristic that ought to be cultivated by prospective engineers? Does aesthetic
sensitivity enhance or impede the engineering design effort? The answer to these
questions will largely determine the answer to the broader question, ``What is the role
of the humanities in undergraduate engineering education?'' Toward that end, this
paper offers some answers to those more specific questions regarding aesthetics. After
surveying a portion of the relevant literature, the issue of how we recognize and
distinguish the aesthetic dimension is investigated. This is followed by a discussion of
the nature of engineering design and how it differs from what is often called ``applied
science.'' With that distinction clarified, the question of terminology is addressed. A
definitional context for questions such as ``What is aesthetics?'' and ``What is good
engineering design aesthetics?'' is developed by rehearsing the meaning of well-defined
terms and by suggesting meanings for those terms that often litter the linguistic
landscape with their ambiguity. Equipped with these definitions, the role of aesthetics in
engineering design is fleshed out, aesthetic allusion is distinguished from symbolic
signifying, and examples of aesthetics in technical products as well as in the process of
design are discussed. The paper concludes with some thoughts and recommendations
about teaching aesthetics to undergraduate engineering students.

Review of the Literature

Although the engineering education literature is not awash in discussions of
aesthetics and design, there has been a steady trickle of essays and books that, over
recent years, have concerned themselves with both the specific topic of aesthetics and
the more broad topic of the relationship of the humanities to engineering design and
to engineering education. Florman [6,7], in his two earliest books, Engineering and the
Liberal Arts and The Existential Pleasures of Engineering, has much to say regarding
the importance of the humanities for the engineering student. In the former book he

discusses the relationship of utility to beauty, as well as the aesthetic dimensions of

architecture, civil engineering, and machine design. In the latter book, itself a work
rich in aesthetic appeal, he defends engineering against those who would relegate it
to some sterile and hypothetical area of life where the aesthetic dimension is all but
absent. French [8] considers the relationship of economy, form and beauty in the
aesthetics of functional design and mass production. In his book, Invention and
Evolution, he considers those topics in a discussion of design in nature and in
engineering. Papanek [12] takes a holistic approach to design, setting it in the context
of what he calls ``human ecology and social change.'' His view of design aesthetics,
on the surface, appears utilitarian, but is tightly interwoven with his concerns for
economy, justice, creativity, permanence, and environmental integrity. Banerjee [1]
makes a case for the inclusion of aesthetics and art in the undergraduate engineering
curriculum. Hartman [9] refers to artist-engineers in history such as Robert Fulton
and Samuel F.B. Morse to suggest that the ``bridge between art and engineering is
shorter than many realize.'' Billington [2,3] distinguishes what he calls the structural
view of technology from the machine view of technology and makes the analogy that
structures are to machines as art is to science. Arguing from his background in civil
engineering and architecture (the ``structural view of technology''), he contends
firmly against the view that engineering is ``applied science,'' suggesting that it leads
to the notion that ``artistic expression and personal taste are `frills' that engineers
must do without.'' Van Poolen [19] identifies ``delightful harmony'' as the central
norm characterizing the aesthetic dimension of engineering design and offers
examples of where this norm has been successfully implemented and where it has
been ignored.
There are a number of philosophically oriented writings on aesthetics apart from the
engineering educational literature that have much to say regarding its role in
engineering and science. Bronowski's [4] book, Science and Human Values, is an ode to
the interwoven character of what C.P. Snow has called the two cultures. In the form of
a Galilean dialogue, Bronowski pleads the cause of creativity, truth, and human
dignity against the assertion that art has no relevancy to science. Pirsig [13] melds
technical utility, delightful harmony, ergonomics, and Hellenistic philosophy in his
quest for the meaning of quality. The result is both an intricate and elegant discussion
of technical design aesthetics. Post [14] argues that engineering design, for example
the U.S. interstate highway system, ``embodies a political, even a philosophical, and
certainly an aesthetic stance.'' Dewey's Art as Experience [5] and Wolterstorff's Art in
Action [20] are broad discussions of aesthetics that provide a background for dealing
with the specific topic of engineering design aesthetics. Lastly, Seerveld [16, 17, 18]
has developed a unique understanding of the core meaning of aesthetics, coining the
term allusivity to describe it. A good part of what follows in this paper makes use of
that understanding to articulate a view of engineering design aesthetics that ought to
be easily understood and appreciated by most undergraduate engineering studentsaesthetes and philistines alike.

The Aesthetic Dimension: An

Introduction
The Statue of Liberty stands on Liberty Island in New York Harbor. It welcomes
hundreds of visitors each day to climb its steep staircase and gaze upon the New York
skyline through tiny windows in its crown. The base of the statue houses a number of
rooms. One, of course, is the souvenir shop. Imagine that you have recently climbed to
the crown, caught your breath while admiring the view, descended to the souvenir
shop, and now sit on one of the park benches around the perimeter of Liberty Island,
souvenir in hand, gazing up at this marvel of late nineteenth century engineering
workmanship. You cannot help being struck by the fact that you are not looking at a
building shaped like a crowned lady holding a book and a torch. Rather, you are
looking at a statue, a work of art, an aesthetically qualified object: the Statue of
Liberty. The book in her left hand stands for ``the law.'' The torch in her right hand
alludes to the ``light of reason.'' The crown on her head suggests that she, that is,
Liberty, is the only sovereign in this land.
Now consider the following:
To see a World in a Grain of Sand
And Heaven in a Wild Flower
Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand
And Eternity in an hour.
Those four lines are not part of a shopping list or a subroutine in a FORTRAN
program. They are the beginning lines from William Blake's poem, Auguries of
Innocence. The poem, like the Statue of Liberty, is an aesthetically qualified object or
product. What is unique about these particular lines is that they very explicitly
describe the nature of the aesthetic dimension. The key concept is ``allusion.'' Thus,
based on these two examples, if something is aesthetically qualified it might use a
grain of sand to allude to a whole world, point to a particular hour in suggesting
eternity, use a torch to allude to ``the light of reason,'' or place in New York harbor a
statue of a crowned lady holding a book and torch to suggest liberty.

Engineering Design and Applied Science

Let us leave our discussion of the meaning of aesthetics for a moment and come back
to it after making some important distinctions. The first of those distinctions is
between ``law'' and ``norm,'' or, correspondingly, ``lawfulness'' and
``normativity.'' By ``lawfulness'' we refer to the ``is'' character of reality. To express

and communicate that lawfulness, we use law statements, or simply, laws. ``Two plus
two equals four'' is such a law. It expresses the ``is'' character of the numerical aspect
of all things that can be counted. Two other such law statements are
and
. The
former is the Pythagorean theorem, an expression of the ``is'' character of the spatial
aspect of all things that have the property of extension. The latter is Newton's law of
gravitation, an expression of the ``is'' character of the physical aspect of all things
that have mass. Normativity, on the other hand, indicates the ``ought'' character of
reality. When we say that we ought to distinguish between `A' and `non-A,' we are
expressing a norm of logic. To say that we ought to speak and write clearly is to
express a linguistic norm. Agreeing that we ought to conserve limited resources is
agreeing to an economic norm. And when we say that in the performance of our
professional engineering duties we ought to hold paramount the safety, health, and
welfare of the public, we are expressing an ethical norm. The purpose of this
distinction between ``is'' and ``ought,'' between ``lawfulness'' and ``normativity,''
is to aid us in distinguishing between science on the one hand, and engineering
design on the other.
Consider the following definition: ``Engineering design is an activity involving an
interplay between theory, experiment and imagination, in which human beings form
and transform nature, with the aid of tools and procedures, for practical ends and
purposes.'' The emphasis in this definition is on developing the world of nature-the
real world-in order to achieve things that we value. And, as most engineers are aware,
this kind of activity is normed, that is, there are ``good'' designs and there are ``bad''
designs, but there is never just one absolutely good design.
In contrast to engineering, consider the following: ``Science is an activity in which
human beings seek theoretical knowledge about nature.'' The emphasis here is not on
development but on discovery; discovering, as precisely as we can, how nature
behaves. Here, although we may never achieve it, there is one ``right'' answer. It is
nature itself.
The difference between engineering and science is manifest, for example, in that my
seeking to learn about radiation heat transfer is a seeking to learn something about
nature, something that already exists. On the other hand, when I seek to design a
heating, ventilating and air conditioning system that uses radiant panels for heating
and cooling, I am trying to bring into being something that never existed before. In
the former I am guided by the law structure of nature. In the latter, I am guided by
the normative structure for human living-something I need to express in linguistic
and mathematical form as a guide for specific action.
It is quite common for people to confuse engineering and science by referring to the
former as ``applied science.'' But applied science is merely scientific activity that is
pursued with a specific goal, other than knowledge itself, in mind. It remains a
seeking after knowledge of what is, in contrast to engineering, which is an attempt to
bring into being that which is not yet. For example, researching the thermodynamic

properties of CFC substitutes is applied science. Designing a refrigeration system

based on a CFC substitute is engineering. In other words, applied science is still
science. It is not engineering. And the confusion of the two can lead to serious
problems for engineering design.
Problems arise when science and engineering are confused because the methods
central to the two activities are so different. The central characteristic of the scientific
method is abstraction, and thus the scientific world is an abstract, a theoretical one.
Consider how engineering freshman learn projectile motion in their introductory
physics class. The object is to understand the motion characteristics of bodies of mass
in a gravitational field. To do that the world is reduced to two dimensions. The body
of mass is reduced to a point. The gravitational field is considered uniform.
Interaction with the medium is ignored. In fact, the only interaction considered is
between the mass point and the gravitational field in a two-dimensional plane. But
that is merely a setting of the stage, so to speak. The key lesson for the student is a
matter of mentally separating (abstracting) the horizontal component of the motion
from the vertical component of the motion. Once these two abstracted components
are understood conceptually and expressed as two algebraic equations, they are
combined (both conceptually and algebraically), and the two dimensional motion is
thereby understood. This method, first articulated as such by Descartes in his
Discourse on Method, has guided Western science for centuries. It is powerful and
reliable and it has brought us from alchemy to quantum mechanics in what has been
a relatively brief period of human history. But the knowledge of the world that it
provides is an abstract knowledge. It is, at best, knowledge of aspects of our world,
and it must be integrated if it is to be more than theoretically meaningful. That
integration is not the central task of science, but it is one of the basic tasks of
engineering design.
As stated in the definition of engineering design given earlier, engineering deals with
the real world, the world of nature, a world that is whole and multifaceted. Unlike
science, which benefits from imagination but primarily depends on inductive and
deductive logic, engineering design demands technological imagination, a non-logical
intellectual leap from the ``known'' to the ``what-might-be,'' what one philosopher
of technology has called productive fantasy [15]. Engineering problems are real world,
multifaceted problems, the solutions to which must take the multifaceted and
integrated character of the real world seriously. In a word, engineering design must
be holistic.
The chief problem with confusing engineering and science, that is, treating
engineering design like applied science, is that a real world problem is reduced to
only one or two of its aspects. The problem, for example, of transporting oil from
Alaska to the lower forty-eight states, may be reduced to only its physical (energy) and
economic (monetary cost) aspects. When this occurs, the resulting solution is an
abstract solution, one that applies to an abstract world but not to the real world
where there exist historical, aesthetic, ecological, social, ethical and other aspects to

the oil transportation problem. Holism in engineering design means considering all
the aspects of the design problem. Engineering students usually learn very well how
to deal with the physical and numerical aspects of a problem. They do not always
learn how to deal with those aspects of an engineering problem often associated with
the humanities and social sciences.
What is there beyond the physical and numerical aspects of an engineering design
problem? Certainly there is an economic aspect. Often there will be a significant
social aspect. How many distinct aspects might there be? Consider the following list of
irreducible aspects of reality as presented by Schuurman [15]:

Table 1 presents an ontology (philosophy of being) that begins with the simplest
aspect of existence, that of discrete number or quantity, and builds upon it. Each
aspect depends upon, but is irreducible to, those that precede it in the list. They
roughly correspond to the various special sciences that have evolved in the Western
academic tradition. Although it is beyond the scope of this paper to make a detailed
presentation of this system of ontological categories, it is instructive to consider how
every artifact functions in some way in each category and how the engineering
designer must either take seriously or ignore that functioning. Consider, for example,
the problem of economically transporting people over distances varying from one to
one hundred miles. One way in which that problem has been addressed is the
invention and design of the automobile. The automobile obviously functions
numerically, spatially, kinematically, and physically. But consider some of the other
aspects of reality found in Table 1. Does an automobile function biotically? An
automobile is not a living thing, yet it has a critical function when it comes to the life
functions of the people it transports. It must preserve those lives, even though it
transports them through space at what in many circumstances are life-threatening
velocities. Similarly the automobile has a sensory function. Not only must it transport

its passengers safely, it must transport them with a reasonable degree of comfort. The
automobile also has a complex and critical set of semantic functions. Consider just the
brake lights, the instrument panel, and the directional signals. Each is a subsystem of
the automobile, the chief purpose of which is to symbolize meaning ``(this car is
stopping,'' ``the gasoline supply is low,'' ``this car is turning)'' in as clear and concise
a manner as possible. The economic functioning of the automobile is obvious without
too much reflection. Besides its monetary value and depreciation, the automobile
depletes scarce resources (petrochemicals) in a relatively frugal or prodigal manner.
The juridical functioning of an automobile is manifest in liability insurance, the
system of licensing procedures, and the multitude of laws defining its legal operation.
And lastly, consider the fiduciary or trust aspect of the automobile. This function is
demonstrated most dramatically in the relative ease with which drivers accelerate
their vehicles to highway speeds, trusting that when needed, the braking system will
operate as it ought. In engineering design we refer to this function as reliability.
What about the aesthetic functioning of an automobile? Does it have to do only with
its pleasing appearance? To adequately answer that, we must first be sure we
understand the meaning of the word ``aesthetics.'' That is the goal of the next section
of this paper.

The Terminology of Aesthetics

What is meant by the words ``beautiful'' and ``ugly?'' Most people will quite readily
classify something as beautiful or ugly, suggesting that they ``know when they see it.''
But what is it about a thing, for example, an automobile, that leads us to so classify it?
Some philosophers of art (aestheticians) suggest that our sense of the beautiful and
the ugly correspond to our innate sense of harmony and its opposite, dissonance.
Harmony has to do with a pleasing or congruent arrangement of parts. It is therefore
suggested that beautiful music is a pleasing or congruent arrangement of sounds, a
beautiful painting is a pleasing or congruent arrangement of colors and twodimensional shapes, and beautiful poetry is a pleasing or congruent arrangement of
lingual symbols (words).
Other philosophers of art, such as Seerveld [16], suggest that the aesthetic aspect has
more to do with playfulness, in which both harmony and beauty, as distinct qualities,
play a role. In that regard, consider the following three words: nuance, allusive, and
imaginativity. A ``nuance'' is a delicate shading, a subtle variation in meaning. To be
``allusive'' is to be suggestive of something else in a subtle, nuanceful manner.
``Imaginativity'' is the ability to be allusive, to imagine subtle, nuanceful variations
in meaning. [17]
I have been persuaded, and thus want to argue, that ``allusivity is the central core of
aesthetic meaning'' [16]. In other words, aesthetic quality is the quality of subtle
suggestiveness or nuance. Consider the following widely ranging examples: In poetry,

Walt Whitman's Oh Captain! My Captain! is very likely familiar to most Americans as

a poem they had to read in junior high school. On first reading the lines
Oh Captain! my Captain! the fearful trip is done;
The ship has weathered every wrack, the prize we sought is won,
we may have thought Whitman was referring to an actual experience at sea. But
quickly we learned it was all allusion. The captain was an allusion to Abraham
Lincoln. The ``fearful trip'' alluded to the Civil War, and the ``prize'' was the
preservation of the union.
In music, the last movement of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, the ``Ode to Joy,'' is a
sonic allusion to joy and celebration, even for those of us who do not understand the
German being sung by the chorus. Neil Young's Harvest Moon is a collection of songs,
most of which allude to a kind of tranquillity found in simplicity, and very much
unlike most of his earlier work.
In the realm of visual art, particularly sculpture, the allusive characteristics of the
Statue of Liberty have previously been discussed.
The products of poetry, music, and art, however, are aesthetically qualified. What
about products such as clothing, housing, and transportation vehicles, products
whose central defining characteristic is not aesthetic, but social or technological? I
want to argue that all products-indeed, all things-have an aesthetic aspect to their
being. For poetry, music, and art, that aspect is the central defining one. For
automobiles, houses, and three-piece suits, the aesthetic aspect may be close to being
central or it may be merely peripheral. But whether central or peripheral, all things
have an aesthetic side to their existence.
To conclude this section on the terminology of aesthetics, consider how the words
``allusive'' and ``aesthetic'' contain the etymological roots to a constellation of terms,
the meanings of which are subtle variations of those roots. Recall that allusive means
``subtly and playfully suggestive,'' or ``nuanceful.'' Then consider that ``illusive''
means deceptive, that is, playing tricks on you, and that ``elusive'' means evasive,
baffling, that is, playing ``hard to get.'' The same kind of word play can deepen our
insight into the meaning of aesthetic. Consider the following definition for aesthetic:
``characterized by allusivity, nuancefulness, playfulness, and delight.'' Then consider
the following derivative terms: aesthete, ascetic, and anesthetic. An aesthete is a
person who ``swallows the whole of life as if it were only aesthetic and chokes on the
impossibility of doing so.'' [17] Ascetic means ``given to (self-) denial, abstaining from
things, negative.'' Anesthetic means ``lacking awareness or sensitivity, obtuse.''
Despite the universal experience of having a student fall asleep in one's class,
engineering educators usually do not think of their lectures and assignments in terms
of ``administering an anesthetic.'' Yet, if the combined effect of our narrowly
technical and highly demanding curricula is to desensitize our students to the point

that they lack awareness of the worlds of art, culture, and politics, then perhaps
``anesthetic'' is a term, the nuances of which we engineering educators ought to be
keenly sensitive.

Technological Allusivity
The question at the heart of this paper is, ``What are the characteristics of good
engineering design aesthetics?'' One answer to that question is given by
functionalism. Functionalism is the aesthetic theory that focuses on utility, and, in
fact, defines beauty as the promise of utility or, to use the terminology developed
earlier, the allusion to utility. One may argue, however, that the focus of
functionalism is misplaced. Surely ``the allusion to utility'' may be an element of
aesthetically good design. But concerning aesthetics, the focus ought to be on the
allusive quality, not the utilitarian quality of the design.
At least since Plato and Aristotle, ``aesthetically good'' has often been defined in
terms of ``the beautiful.'' But, of course, such a definition only begs the question
because we have at least as much difficulty defining ``beautiful'' as we do
``aesthetically good.'' As we have seen, functionalism defines beauty in terms of
utility. According to our discussion of aesthetics and allusivity, we may want to define
beauty as that which is strikingly yet subtly suggestive, displaying a unity in variety.
Robert Pirsig, author of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance [13], seems to
define aesthetically good design as a holistic, delightful harmony between human and
machine. Lambert Van Poolen, an engineering educator who has given significant
thought to these issues, views aesthetically good design similarly, arguing that ``the
design specification should reflect the telos of delightful harmony'' [19].
Incorporating Van Poolen's notion of delightful harmony, I want to argue that
aesthetically good engineering design is that which embodies technological allusivity.
By that I mean the following:
Technological allusivity in engineering design is achieved when the design
successfully suggests a (delightfully) harmonious interaction, at the human-technical
interface, whereby the product dissolves into an extension of the user.
Consider the key words in this definition. ``The design successfully suggests,'' refers,
of course, to the idea that allusivity is the core of aesthetic meaning. By referring to
the ``human-technical interface,'' technological allusivity is connected with
ergonomics and user-friendliness. The phrase, ``dissolves into an extension of the
user,'' is a metaphor for the process by which the product becomes so familiar to us
that it is as unobtrusive and as natural as our bodies and minds.

Examples

{A fork lift is used to move palettes of heavy material, usually in boxes, over short
vertical and horizontal distances. As such it multiplies the operator's physical
strength, maintains a degree of balance that would be difficult to maintain under
such strenuous circumstances, extends the movement capabilities of the operator,
and facilitates the operator's sense of spatial ordering. Each of these characteristics:
strength, balance, extension, and spatial ordering, are qualities possessed by a human
being. A fork lift multiplies those. An aesthetically well-designed fork lift, that is, a fork
lift exhibiting technological allusivity, is one whereby the multiplied qualities are
such natural extensions of the operator's abilities that the fork lift as technological
artifact virtually disappears. The fork lift dissolves into an extension of the operator's
strength, balance, movement, and spatial ordering.
Technological allusivity ought be manifest not only in the products of engineering
design, but also in the processes of engineering design. Sometimes a product of
engineering design is a process, as in the case of an industrial assembly line process.
Aesthetically good engineering design in such a case would result in an assembly
process whereby the stages of the process are not perceived as stages imposed upon a
collection of workers, but as the natural flow of events in the process of assembling
an artifact. In this sense, the failure of Frederick Taylor's imposition of ``scientific
management'' on American industry in the late nineteenth century was a failure to
balance aesthetic design norms with economic design norms. In Taylor's theory, the
human dissolves into an extension of the tool rather than the tool dissolving into an
extension of the human.
The engineering design process itself, as a process, has an aesthetic aspect to it. As
such it ought to be guided by the norm of technological allusivity. When that occurs,
the stages of the design process dissolve into the engineer's continuous and normal
thought patterns, reflect her creativity, and allude to an autonomous and ex nilio
creativity.
Consider the following specific examples. An aesthetically well designed windmill on
a farm in northwest Iowa dissolves into an extension of the farmer's water pumping
ability, energy independence, and self-confidence (sense of security). An aesthetically
well designed word processor used by a college student dissolves into an extension of
the student's ability to write, spell, control layout, etc. An aesthetically well designed
HVAC system that is part of a single family home, dissolves into an extension of the
homeowners sense of environmental control and security. And an aesthetically well
designed automobile will first dissolve into an extension of the driver's ability to
travel from point A to point B. It may also, however, become an extension of the
driver's sense of self-worth.
The example of the automobile points out that the aesthetics in a given product's
design may not be exhausted by allusion to the products corresponding function in
the human user. There are often other allusions present in a product that are not at
all central to its function. The clearest example, of course, is the automobile in

America with its allusions to wealth, prestige, and power. The design engineer's
sensitivity to the need to deal with this side of the product's aesthetic aspect is a
requirement for aesthetically good design.

Allusion and Symbol in Engineering

Design
It is important not to confuse the roles of allusion and symbol in engineering design.
The former has to do with aesthetics, the latter with linguistics. They are easily
confused because a symbol is a special case of an allusion. One might say that a
symbol is an allusion in which there is no subtlety, where playfulness gives way to
clarity and conciseness. Thus the Greek letter pi (
) is a symbol for the irrational
number representing the ratio of a circle's circumference to its diameter (3.14159...).
There is no subtlety either intended or desired. An effective muffler on an
automobile, chain saw, or lawn mower, on the other hand, will enhance the aesthetic
quality of the artifact because it will facilitate the artifact's ability to dissolve into an
extension of the user's natural ability to ambulate, to cut wood, or to trim grass. There
is no symbol as such that is operative. It is the absence of internal combustion engine
noise, made possible by the muffler, that allows for the allusion.
The automobile at once presents the clearest example of the difference between
symbol and allusion and the ease with which they may be confused. Consider, if you
can, the tail lights on a 1959 Cadillac. Like the tail lights on any vehicle, they
symbolically signify, that is, they symbolize that the car is in the process of
decelerating and that any vehicle following it ought to take care to decelerate as well.
But the tail lights on the 1959 Cadillac are shaped to suggest the plume of burning
gases that is emitted from a jet engine (actually four jet engines, two on each of the
prodigious rear tail fins) as the aircraft roars into the sky. The symbol and the
allusion thus have two very different meanings.
Thus aesthetics in engineering design can be characterized as technological allusivity,
as that has already been defined. The role of semantics in engineering design, on the
other hand, may be characterized as technological symbolic signification-the use of
symbols to signify meanings in as clear and concise a manner as possible.

Technological Aesthetics and

Engineering Education
If we expect engineers to produce designs of aesthetically high quality, then we must
educate them regarding the role of aesthetics in engineering design. The most obvious
situation in which to do that is the senior design experience. But waiting until the

senior design experience is like waiting until the day before the Olympics to start
practicing for the steeplechase. It is too late. Just as the integration of engineering
design into as many engineering courses as possible is correctly urged by ABET, so too
the sensitizing of engineering students to the aesthetic aspect of design at every
opportunity ought to be urged. There are three things that we can begin to do that will
help us move in that direction. I discuss them in reverse order of importance.
First we can include lectures, discussions, and assignments in our courses that
directly address aesthetics in design. The design portion of an introductory
engineering course for freshman and the senior design course are two places to start.
Second, we can collaborate with our colleagues in the liberal arts so that the courses
taken by engineering students either provide the groundwork for or reinforce the
notion of engineering design aesthetics. Technology and the liberal arts are not
mutually antithetical or mutually antagonistic. Each one of our students comes to us a
whole person. We owe them a holistic education in engineering courses and outside
them. That means sensitizing students to the importance of aesthetics in their
particular technical field. It also means enabling them to cultivate an appreciation for
aesthetics in its broader cultural sense.
That leads to the third and most important thing that we can do. We can more
aggressively work at developing aesthetic sensitivity in ourselves, and we can take
seriously the importance of aesthetic sensitivity in prospective faculty. The best way
for engineering students to develop an appreciation for aesthetics is for it to ``rub off
on to them'' from engineering faculty who can't resist using a good metaphor when
appropriate, who informally share their love for music, poetry and art with their
students, and who can extemporaneously relate to them why the Statue of Liberty has
a torch in her hand and why the tail lights on 1959 Cadillacs look the way they do.

Summary
In this paper it has been argued that
1. Quality engineering design demands the recognition of the many dimensions
(for example, physical, social, economic, etc.) of the ``real world.''
2. The aesthetic is one of those dimensions.
3. Allusivity is the core of aesthetic meaning in all activities (poetry, music, dance,
engineering design, etc.).
4. Good engineering design aesthetics implies (delightfully) harmonious
interaction, at the human-technical interface, whereby the product dissolves
into an extension of the user.
5. Teaching good engineering design aesthetics to engineering students requires

engineering faculty who are enthusiastic about the arts in general and who are
sensitive to the aesthetic aspect of their own work.

Glossary (from Seerveld [17] and

Merriam-Webster [10])
aesthete (n.)
a person who swallows the whole of life as if it were only aesthetic and chokes
on the impossibility of doing so; one incessantly affecting aesthetic sensitivity.
aesthetic (adj.)
relating to aesthetics; characterized by allusivity, nuancefulness, playfulness,
and delight.
aesthetics (n.)
[10] a branch of philosophy dealing with the nature of beauty, art, and taste and
with the creation and appreciation of beauty. [16] the study of the ludic
dimension of life, that is, the dimension characterized by allusivity,
nuancefulness, playfulness, and delight.
allusive (adj.)
subtly suggestive, nuanceful.
allusivity (n.)
the core of aesthetic meaning, the quality of being allusive, nuanceful.
anesthetic (adj.)
lacking awareness or sensitivity, obtuse.
artistic (adj.)
pertaining to arts; a specially structured sort of aesthetic activity, usually
productive of aesthetically qualified objects with their own fairly durable,
independent identity and character as entity or event.
ascetic (adj.)
given to (self-) denial and abstaining from things, negative.
beautiful (adj.)
strikingly nuanceful, especially in the quality of unified variety.
delight (n.)
joy, extreme satisfaction, great pleasure.
elusive (adj.)
playing hard to get, baffling, evasive, slippery. engineering design (n.) a human

cultural activity that involves an interplay between theory, experiment, and

imagination, in which human beings form and transform nature, for practical
ends and purposes, with the aid of tools and procedures.
functionalism (n.)
a philosophy of design holding that form should be adapted to use, material, and
structure.
game (n.)
an aesthetic object or event , like a complex toy, which you activate by becoming
a player; organized play.
harmony (n.)
a pleasing or congruent arrangement of parts.
illusive (adj.)
playing tricks on you, deceptive.
imaginativity (n.)
the capability to be allusive, to imagine, to be imaginative.
ludic (adj.)
characterized by play, playful (from the Latin ludo, I play).
normative (adj.)
the way it ought to be, proper, good, in accordance with norms.
nuance (n.)
subtle variation, a delicate shading.
play (v.)
to be engaged in one basic sort of possible aesthetic activity.
playfulness (n.)
the essence of play, an aesthetic moment covertly showing up in other kinds of
activities.
science (n.)
the seeking of knowledge about reality, characterized by analysis or abstraction.
style (n.)
the allusive, playful, imaginative characteristic consistently showing up in
someone or some group's activities.

References

1. Bannerjee, J.K., 1989, Need For Aesthetics and Art for Engineers, ASEE Annual
Conference Proceedings, pp. 540-544.
2. Billington, D.P., 1974, ``Structure and Machines: The Two Sides of Technology,''
Soundings, v57 n3 pp. 275-288.
3. Billington, D.P., 1986, ``In Defense of Engineers,'' The Wilson Quarterly, v10, n1,
pp. 86-97.
4. Bronowski, J., 1956, Science and Human Values, Harper &Row Publishers, New
York.
5. Dewey, J., 1934, Art as Experience, Capricorn Books, New York.
6. Florman, S.C., 1968, Engineering and the Liberal Arts: A Technologist's Guide to
History, Literature, Philosophy, Art, and Music, St. Martin's Press, New York.
7. Florman, S.C., 1976, The Existential Pleasures of Engineering, St. Martin's Press,
New York.
8. French, M.J., 1988, Invention and evolution: Design in nature and engineering,
Cambridge University Press, New York.
9. Hartman, J.P., 1991, ``Art &Engineering,'' ASEE Annual Conference Proceedings,
pp. 1101-1105.
10. Johnson, M.L. and Grant, J.E. (Editors), 1979, Blake's Poetry and Designs, W.W.
Norton &Company, New York.
11. Merriam-Webster, Inc., 1994, Merriam Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, 10th
Edition, Merriam-Webster, Incorporated, Springfield, MA.
12. Papanek, V., 1972, Design for the Real World, Random House, Inc., New York.
13. Pirsig, R.M., 1974, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, William Morrow
and Company, New York.
14. Post, R.C., 1993, ``The Frailties and Beauties of Technological Creativity,''
Invention &Technology, Spring, pp. 16-24.
15. Schuurman, E., 1980, Technology and the Future: A Philosophical Challenge,
Wedge Publishing Company, Toronto.
16. Seerveld, C.G., 1980, Rainbows for the Fallen World, Toronto Tuppence Press,
Downsview, Ontario.
17. Seerveld, C.G., 1981, Aesthetic Imperatives for North American Life Today, lecture
handout, lecture delivered at Dordt College, Sioux Center, IA, October, 1981.

18. Seerveld, C.G., 1985, ``Dooyeweerd's Legacy for Aesthetics: Modal Law Theory,''
(in McIntire, C.T., editor, 1985, The Legacy of Herman Dooyeweerd, University
Press of America, New York.), pp. 41-79.
19. Van Poolen, L.J., 1989, ``A Philosophical Perspective on Technological Design,''
International Journal of Applied Engineering Education, Vol. 5, No. 3, pp. 319-329.
20. Wolterstorff, N., 1980, Art in Action, Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., Grand
Rapids, MI.

mort@etp.com
Mon Oct 2 14:06:24 PDT 1995