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Culture and Art
Reference:

Design as a cultural phenomenon

Pankratova Aleksandra Vladimirovna

PhD in Philosophy

Associate professor, Department of Design, National Research University “Moscow Power Engineering Institute”

111250, Russia, Moskovskaya oblast', g. Moscow, ul. Krasnokazarmennaya, 13 S, kab. 605

sashaoscar@mail.ru
Other publications by this author
 

 

DOI:

10.7256/2454-0625.2023.11.33573

EDN:

YUIVBS

Received:

31-07-2020


Published:

10-10-2023


Abstract: The object of the study is culture in terms of its aesthetic component (art and design). The subject of the study is design as a cultural phenomenon. The author suggests that design from a philosophical point of view contains meanings that are not described by the traditional number of aesthetic categories. The author demarcates the categories "design" with the categories "art" and "aesthetic", consistently identifying differences in the following parameters: 1. functional difference; 2. difference of origin; 3. semiotic difference. Having distinguished the design category from the art category, the author reveals the specific semiurgical essence of the design category. Semiurgic design is associated with projective activity, that is, the activity of creating new signs. Design is associated with the design of secondary reality and the gradual doubling of the world. The main conclusion of the study is an attempt to derive the formula of the philosophical content of the category "design". The philosophical category "design" is associated with the aesthetic organization of secondary reality and is characterized by projectivity (orientation to innovation), transitivity (orientation to real application), functionality (orientation to optimal application), immanence (lack of connections with the transcendent) and semiurgicity – the function of creating new signs. The semiurgic nature of design lies in the constant reproduction of itself, since the discourse of design "new" becomes synonymous with design and loses the meaning of the dialectical negation of "old". The design is associated with the symbolic doubling of the world. Moreover, this doubling does not increase the meaning and value of being, but, on the contrary, enhances the illusory nature of being, since design, unlike art, is not associated with pointing to a transcendent reality.


Keywords:

Design, art, aesthetic, categories of aesthetics, semiotics, semiurgy, transcendent, symbolic doubling, modernism, postmodern

This article is automatically translated.

Introduction

 

Currently, the philosophical and cultural understanding of design, the study of design as a cultural phenomenon, is particularly relevant, given the ubiquity of design. Design today is a metalanguage of the modern visual and informational environment in which humanity is immersed.

Design is close to art in its philosophical content, however, it has its own specifics. Cultural understanding of design can cover various aspects of this phenomenon. In this article, the research is based on the system of aesthetic categories of V. V. Bychkov, since if we accept this classification, in which there is a category of "art", then "design" can be considered as one of the categories of aesthetics. At the same time, the category "design" will describe that aspect of reality for which there is no aesthetic category yet. That is, in this study, design as a cultural phenomenon is compared with the phenomenon of art, and in this comparison, the specifics of design are revealed.

The object of the study is culture in terms of its aesthetic component (art and design). The subject of the study is design as a cultural phenomenon.

 Currently, the design has been studied quite extensively. These are the works of the first design theorists, for example, D. Ruskin [1], A. Loos [2], the theory of design developed in the first design educational institutions of the Bauhaus and VKhUTEMAS, for example, the works of K. Malevich [3], V. Kandinsky [4], I. Itten and others. The general theory of design was developed in the 1960s under the leadership of G. P. Shchedrovitsky [5]. Design as a project methodology of modernity is considered in the works of A. A. Zelenov [6], A.V. Kazarinov [7], S. V. Norenkov [8]. Design from a semiotic point of view is considered, for example, by E. V. Zherdev [9]. A deep philosophical analysis of the design phenomenon is presented in the works of G. N. Lola [10].

The author of this article has also already addressed the study of design, including on the pages of the magazine "Culture and Art". Thus, in the article "Design in Modernity: a historical choice in favor of globalization", the period of the formation of design was considered [11], and in the article "Flat design as visualization of flat ontologies", the design of the modern period was considered [12].

In this study, the focus of attention is focused on identifying the specifics of design by comparison with the phenomenon of art, based on the functional approach to the classification of aesthetic categories by V. V. Bychkov [13].

Of course, design existed long before its comprehension in the works of both modern authors and design theorists. In this sense, the history of design can be divided into two uneven periods: implicit and explicit. The implicit history of design is the history of the subject world and the visual environment before the emergence of the designer profession in the 1950s. The explicit history of design is the period of the existence of design as a profession, as a social practice and as a subject of theoretical understanding. 

Design, as a cultural phenomenon, is inherent in man from the beginning, and that is why it is curious to draw a line where this cultural phenomenon is distinguished from the phenomenon of art. Both art and design accompany the entire history of mankind, belong to the aesthetic part of culture. That is why the difference is interesting, I wonder what exactly the specifics of the design phenomenon are manifested in.

V. V. Bychkov, classifying aesthetic categories, identifies two meta–categories of aesthetics - art and aesthetic. Art, to use the definition of V. V. Bychkov, is a universal way of concretely sensual expression of non-verbalized spiritual experience, primarily aesthetic [13, p. 255]. Aesthetic is the most general category of aesthetics; it is a metacategory by which its subject is designated [13, pp. 143-146]; the sphere of subject-object relations in which the perception of an object or the representation of it is accompanied by disinterested, disinterested pleasure.

Aesthetic is understood as a broader category than art, and the emergence of this category is associated with the modernist revolution in art in the first half of the XX century, when there was a devaluation of the category of beauty and new spheres of human activity related to art and creativity, but not necessarily related to traditional ideas about beauty.

It could be assumed that the already existing categories of aesthetics are sufficient for philosophical understanding of the design sphere, however, neither the category "art" nor the category "aesthetic" reflect the specifics and deep content of the design phenomenon.

Let's consider what is the specificity of the philosophical content of the category "design", for which we will draw a line separating the category "design" from the categories "art" and "aesthetic".

 

I. Demarcation with the categories "art" and "aesthetic"

 

1. Functional difference

The fundamental difference between the category of "art" and the supposed category of "design" is the anagogic function, that is, the ability to elevate the consciousness of the perceiver into the high spheres of the spirit.

Real art always contains a transcendent signified, refers the recipient to archetypal meanings, to being, to God. A work of art is always to some extent a symbol, since the content of a real work of art is always larger, more voluminous, deeper than its form. A work of art either hints at a transcendent reality, or openly indicates.

Art is designed to reveal the truth in a sensual form [14, p. 137]. According to F. V. Schelling, "creativity or creation is always and necessarily the identification of something infinite, some concept in something finite or real." [15, p. 186]. The subject of art "can only be a real idea that opens to sensual contemplation" [16, p. 129]. The understanding of art as a way to point to a transcendent reality, to the world of ideas, comes from Plato, who clearly distinguished real art, "the art of creating images" [17, p. 30], from simulation – the art of "creating ghostly likenesses". Real art is always vertically oriented, pointing upwards, to a supersensible being.

At least, such a philosophical understanding of art was dominant until the early 1910s, when avant-garde art, reflecting the ideology of the materialist paradigm, fundamentally changes the philosophical content of art. And it was among the avant-gardists of the 1920s that design as a profession was consolidated.

In design, an anagogic moment is not mandatory, moreover, some authors emphasize the rhetorical, superficial nature of the design. For example, G. N. Lola writes about this, saying that "by the end of the XIX century, the understanding of design as a means of re-sacralization of a thing was established" [10, p. 83]. Or: "the purpose of design is to bring comfort into the world as such, in distraction from the meaning inherent in the "work"" [10, p. 173]. The designer does not care about transcendental meanings, about the deep meaning of a thing, he just creates comfort, interface, communication.

This property of design is not evaluated by the designers themselves as a kind of inferiority, on the contrary, since the era of modernism, the time of the establishment of design as a profession, design has been postulated as part of the positivist paradigm. Designers have always emphasized their continuity in relation to designers, engineers, scientists and distanced themselves from pure art. The ideology of the first design schools, Bauhaus and VKhUTEMAS was fundamentally horizontally oriented, built around an exclusively materialistic worldview.

V. V. Bychkov argues that the need for the appearance of the category "aesthetic" is connected precisely with the modernist paradigm in art, which allows both the ugly and disharmony as a means of artistic expression. One could assume that "aesthetic", being a broader category than "art", includes phenomena that, while not having the ability to refer to the transcendent, are nevertheless associated with the beauty of the objective world. However, even in the case of the category "aesthetic", there are noticeable differences from the philosophical content of the category "design".

Since the time of I. Kant, the self-sufficiency of the aesthetic phenomenon as an object of non-utilitarian pleasure has been fundamental for the category "aesthetic". A. F. Losev defines aesthetic as "an expression of one or another subjectivity given as a self-sufficient contemplative value and treated as a bundle of socio-historical relations" [18, p. 393]. That is, aesthetic is all that the perception of which gives us pleasure, but at the same time is not related to our practical need and benefit. This is formulated in Oscar Wilde's famous phrase "all art is completely useless" [19, p. 70].

On the contrary, functionality is the defining moment for design. Design is fundamentally useful. In design engineering, the most important thing is the moment of feasibility, expediency, practicality.

According to a group of authors led by G. P. Shchedrovitsky and O. I. Genisaretsky, "design appears to be a system that reacts to gaps and contradictions in the social and subject organization of the world as disturbing influences and which, through the design and implementation of projects, develops controlling influences that eliminate these gaps and contradictions" [5, p. 296]. That is, the design eliminates problems, improves the functioning of the environment.

Art has higher goals, and aesthetic has goals that are more distant from practice.

So, the category of design does not refer to the transcendent signified, as art, and is not associated with a non-utilitarian contemplative value, as aesthetic. There is another difference from the named aesthetic categories.

 

2. Difference of origin

 The genesis of design as a social practice is strikingly different from the emergence of art. Art first slowly grows out of other fields of activity, and then is comprehended philosophically. On the one hand, the same can be said about design: design is an immanent property of human culture. However, on the other hand, design as a reflexive activity is a projective phenomenon [20, pp. 204-215]: initially, design arises as a philosophical project, as a requirement of the time, formulated in the works of critics and art historians, and only then gradually becomes a social practice. The term "projectivity" means, according to M. N. Epstein, orientation to the future. Of course, design thinking existed long before design theorists formulated their design request and began theoretical understanding of design. But still, in the history of design, for example, in S. M. Mikhailov [21], it is customary to refer everything that relates to the implicit history of design to protodesign.

The design theorists of the XIX century, as you know, raised the question that thanks to scientific and technological progress, a new sphere of life appears that needs aesthetic understanding. It was about the products of progress, to which it was useless to apply classical ideas about beauty.

Further, within the framework of the Chicago School of Architecture, there is an understanding of the aesthetics of functionalism. L. Sullivan writes that a skyscraper should have its own aesthetics associated with height and exaltation, and deduces the formula defining for all modernism, "form follows function."

Following the American functionalists, A. Loos in Europe writes his program article "Ornament and Crime" [2], in which he draws a clear line between the aesthetics of the past, associated with decoration, and the aesthetics of modernity, associated with cleanliness and getting rid of any jewelry. The aesthetic meaning of A. Loos' article is in purism, the purity of lines and surfaces, which have since become a common place in design. The culturological content of A. Loos' thoughts is that a modern person and a person of traditional formation think fundamentally differently. Modern man, according to A. Loos, does not need additional meanings, which are expressed in additional signifiers (decorations). The reality of modern man is fundamentally pure and removed from nature. Modern man lives in a world of objects created by scientific and technological progress. The danger of the ideas of A. Loos, fraught with rejection of history, culture and national identity, could not have been realized a hundred years ago, and is not fully realized now. However, it is the ideas of functionalism that have defined the essence of design up to the present day.

That is, design arises together with the need for an aesthetic understanding of the world, which is not part of art and part of nature. A world generated by scientific and technological progress and a positivist worldview.

Art and aesthetic understanding of reality arise in a vertically oriented paradigm. The most important role in the formation of art as a social practice is played by Christianity, the Christian worldview and the system of values.

Aesthetic consciousness and art before the realism of the XIX century obeys the idea of aesthetic hierarchy. A work of art is all the more real the closer it is to the Idea of Beauty, to God. Art, no matter how folk its roots may be, by its very idea is the sphere of the aristocrats of the spirit. "A real peasant cannot see the beauty of the herd: he sees only those properties that make it useful" [1, p. 60], – wrote J. Ruskin in lectures on art. Later, he would become one of those who anticipated the appearance of design, a practice with slightly different goals.

Design is born and consolidated as a social practice in parallel with the birth and consolidation of the materialist paradigm and the institution of political democracy, as well as in parallel with the projects of socialist utopias and the development of ideas of social equality.

The design reflects the ideology of equality, denies aesthetic and any other hierarchy. The famous Bauhaus and VKHUTEMAS design schools flourish in the conditions of universal fascination with the ideas of social equality and express these ideas in design.

The design of modernism is, first of all, the idea of international design – a design suitable for any country and equalizing the social status of people. Postmodern design continued to work for the masses, mass culture, thereby achieving true internationality and, indeed, equalizing the masses and the elite. Modern design is, in many ways, an instrument of globalization, thus continuing the line of upholding universal equality and denying the idea of aesthetic hierarchy.

Thus, at its core, the essence of art and design is dramatically different. The very idea of art is based on an aesthetic hierarchy. Design, on the contrary, grew out of the ideas of equality, the negation of hierarchy.

Of course, in modern art the situation with the aesthetic hierarchy is more complicated, and that is why a broader category of "aesthetic" is introduced into the system of philosophical categories. But modern art is a conscious denial of the classical understanding of the idea of art. In this sense, where art departs from the idea of creating a work of art (for example, in Dadaism), and becomes a simulacrum, it ceases to be art in the full, and, in any case, in the philosophical sense of the word. As J. wrote . Baudrillard about contemporary art, "art is everywhere now, because artificiality is now at the very heart of reality. Consequently, art is dead" [22, p. 154].

Design, on the contrary, has grown and consolidated on the idea of social equality and aesthetic pluralism. This, by the way, nowadays leads to some design problems associated with the practice of lack of differentiation and individualization that has become entrenched in design.

The aesthetic hierarchy of art is determined by its proximity to transcendent reality, therefore it is permeated with Logos. The aesthetic pluralism of design is determined by fashion, politics, and the chaos of the modern agenda.

 

3. Semiotic difference

 

Despite the difference in origin and functioning, art and design are semiotic, that is, they can be considered as systems of signs.

Any work of art and any work of design is a sign. "In the range from the simplest kind of sign – gesture – to the most exquisite pictorial image, the iconic function of the image remains unchanged. "Nailing to the cross" by Rubens is a sign, but crossing yourself is also a sign," writes E. Gilson [23, p. 237].

However, the semiotic system of art and design are different. The difference between semiotic systems is due to origin. As it was shown above, the category of "design", in contrast to the categories of "art" and "aesthetic", arises in the materialist paradigm.

The main type of signs used by art is a sign-symbol. It is with the help of symbols that art shows the transcendent. It is for the transmission of transcendental meanings that the sign-symbol appears in the Christian paradigm, and then exists in art.

Design appears in the XIX century, when the perception of reality changed to the opposite. In the XIX century. the active process of the loss of the transcendent began. "We live in one of those historical periods when the heavens remain empty for a while. By virtue of this alone, the world must change," wrote G. Lebon in 1895 [24, p. 172]. At the same time, the practice of design begins to develop. The design grew out of a conscious break with the transcendent.

The formation of design coincided with the Industrial Revolution - the time of the appearance of the second-order simulacrum - industrial analogues. It was for the development of second-order simulacra, for mass production, that the design was originally intended. That is, design as a semiotic system immediately set a course for using the simulacrum as the main type of signs.

After the 1960s, during the active heyday of social consumption, design switched to the use of third-order simulacra, signs that are structural units of hyperreality. Design today is becoming the main tool for organizing hyperreality, forming an interface of communication between a person and the information environment. In hyperreality, the main type of signs are precisely simulacra signs.

If we consider a work of art as a sign, then, in the end, it refers the recipient to the transcendent signified. A work of art is always to some extent a sign-symbol.

If we consider a work of design as a sign, then comfort, or a certain complex concept of "Design", will be signified. Design is a sign of itself, that the thing is "designer". That is, design as a sign tends to level the depth, to connect the signifier with the signified, that is, to use the simulacrum as a sign.

Thus, the main semiotic difference between art and design is in the prevailing type of signs. The highest art uses signs-symbols, design in its limit uses exclusively signs-simulacra.

II. Semiurgical essence of the design category

 M. N. Epstein identifies three types of activity in the field of signs: sign-matching, sign-descriptive and sign-creative. The first type includes all written and spoken texts. To the second – dictionaries, linguistic studies, textbooks, where the laws of word combinations are derived. The third type – the rarest – is the introduction of new signs. M. N. Epstein calls this type of work with signs semiurgy and considers it one of the most promising areas of science.

Design, being practically an indicative semiotic system, covers all three types of activities related to signs. Sign–matching activity is a common design practice. Design is the principle of optimal combination of signs. Sign–writing activity is the compilation of brandbooks, design codes, description of the principles of work within the framework of the developed system of signs.

And finally, design deals with semiurgy more than any other semiotic system. The creation of new things, systems of visual messages, symbols – all this is the field of activity of designers. As an example of such a semiurgy, one can cite the creation of a symbol denoting the ruble, developed by the studio of Artemy Lebedev.

M. N. Epstein attributes semiurgical practices to projective thinking. So, in the field of linguistics, projective activity is the creation of new words. It is clear that design is almost entirely a projective activity, both in this sense and in the most direct. Design is design, and this is how it was understood back in the days of the Bauhaus VKhUTEMAS. Project culture has become a unifying concept of the Bauhaus education system [25, p. 47].

Moreover, in the era of modernism, projectivity, orientation to the future, orientation to the new reached hypertrophied forms. For example, art history was not taught at the Bauhaus, since "Walter Gropius saw history as nothing more than a way to cloud the project imagination" [26, p. 27]. Design is fundamentally directed to the future, the past is not interesting to designers.

Design is focused on the creation of the new, but the "new" exists only in dialectical interaction with the old. While in the discourse of design history, in principle, does not exist. All three main periods in design – modernism, modernism and postmodernism – are essentially connected with the "new", which is reflected in the terms themselves. The "new" in the discourse of design is replacing the "new". The meaning of the concept of "new" merges with the design itself, "new" turns out to be synonymous with design.

Design creates new things, signs, systems of things and signs, but, in fact, design is busy reproducing itself. The semiurgical activity of design is an endless reproduction of a new design. The very expression "new design" becomes tautological in the discourse of design. An example of such a tautology is, by the way, the design movement of the 1980s, which received just such a name - "New Design". Representatives of this movement began with a postmodern play on the design of modernism, but entered the history of design with fairly standard objects in the spirit of design throughout the XX century.

Thus, design is engaged in the semiurgical activity of reproducing itself. Design constantly produces new signs, but their novelty is not an essential novelty, that is, not something fundamentally different, but a novelty in quantitative terms. The design constantly produces another sign.

Conclusions

 Thus, design as a cultural phenomenon is characterized by:

1. Projectivity – orientation to the future;

2. Functionality – focus on optimal application;

4. Immanence – the absence of references to the transcendent.

5. Semiurgicity – the function of creating new signs.

Design projects a system of images and connotations onto a system of real things, building its own cultural code. This sign system becomes an intermediary between a person and absolutely everything that surrounds him, allows you to construct an aesthetically justified subjective world based on the existing objective one.

References
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The subject of the study, as the author defined in the title of the article, is design as a cultural phenomenon. The author has not defined the object in question (culture), which allows the reader to consider it in the most generalized systemic sense: for example, as a historically developing system of supra-biological programs of society (V.S. Stepin). V.S. Stepin's definition of culture does not contradict the basic methodological foundations of the presented research (J. Baudrillard, V.V. Bychkov, G. Hegel, A.F. Losev, M.N. Epstein, etc.). However, the author's understanding of design as a social practice, which goes back to Plato's interpretation of practice as a procedure for embodying the ideal, is in conflict with reality. The reviewer draws the author's attention to the fact that at the end of the XIX – beginning of the XX centuries. design receives theoretical understanding and becomes a professional practice, having left the practice of artistic creativity common to art. Design in artistic creation existed long before its comprehension. To confirm this, we will give a historical example: the design of Byzantine rituals significantly influenced the civilizational choice of Vladimir the Great, and later on the emergence of Russian civilization. Of course, in this example we are talking about a completely different design episteme (not modern, but early medieval), which includes the political ambitions of both Vladimir and the Byzantine Patriarchate. But nevertheless, it allows us to look more broadly at the concept of design as a social practice, without excluding the theoretical position that design thinking, in principle, underlies any artistic creation: let us note that the appearance of flat-bottomed dishes in the Neolithic era significantly predetermined the appearance of modern civilization, as well as the seven-day working week, leaving The roots are in the religious beliefs of the ancient Sumerians. Thus, design as a social practice (P. Bourdieu) is much older than the "first" design firm of W. Morris, and in addition to the modernist design episteme, others are found in the history of world culture, the history of world culture as a whole can be interpreted as an epistemological evolution, highlighting, among other things, epistemological design revolutions, starting with design the handles of a stone axe. The narrow interpretation of design as a "social" (professional) practice is obviously influenced by the shop isolation of design theorists. Attempts at generalization ("Design as a cultural phenomenon") require the expansion of research optics. The author has distinguished the main aesthetic categories in a sufficiently substantive and theoretically based way, which make it possible to consider design as a cultural phenomenon, but the final conclusion, which summarizes the essential characteristics of design as a cultural phenomenon, contradicts the narrow interpretation by the author himself of the social practice of design. The essential characteristics of design as a cultural phenomenon given by the author allow us to see the presence of design thinking among both the ancient Greeks and the ancient Romans, and even look into the depths of the most ancient archaeological cultures, affirmatively noting that implicit (unconscious, theoretically unreflected) design thinking is inherent in man in principle. Consequently, professional design practices, based equally on engineering design and aesthetic concepts of modernity, represent only a certain isolated civilizational level of social design practices, characterized by theoretical self-reflection, and design as a cultural phenomenon has been inherent in the syncretic form of artistic creativity to man since ancient times. Therefore, according to the reviewer, a number of the author's judgments contradict his own final conclusion, the validity of which is beyond doubt. The author himself writes that "design arises along with the need for an aesthetic understanding of the world": this need significantly distinguishes humans from animals, i.e. design did not arise in the twentieth century, but together with homo sapiens. Judgments that contradict the result of the study (conclusion) must be corrected by the author, these are such judgments as: "initially, design arises as a philosophical project, as a requirement of the time, formulated in the works of critics and art historians, and only then gradually becomes a social practice", "design arises along with the need for aesthetic understanding of the world, which is not part of art and a part of nature. The world generated by scientific and technological progress and a positivist worldview", "The very crystallization of aesthetic consciousness, and even aesthetics as a science, occurs in the Christian paradigm" [the author unwittingly denies aesthetic consciousness not only to the ancient Greeks who invented aesthetics, but also to the ancient civilizations of China, India, Persia, Buddhists, Muslims and other confessions, which borders on racism], "Design is born and consolidated as a social practice in parallel with the birth and consolidation of the materialist paradigm and the institution of political democracy, as well as in parallel with the projects of socialist utopias and the development of ideas of social equality," "Design, on the contrary, grew out of the ideas of equality, the denial of hierarchy." Otherwise, it can be concluded that the subject of the study has been sufficiently disclosed by the author. The research methodology is based on V. V. Bychkov's functional approach to the classification of aesthetic categories and is a procedure for the logical differentiation of the beautiful and aesthetic, art and design. In the author's analysis, the distinction between the origin of art and design is questionable due to the narrow author's interpretation of the social practice of design. For the rest ("Semiotic difference" and "Semiurgical essence of the design category"), the results of the analysis and generalizations are trustworthy. The author explains the relevance of the research by saying that "design today is a metalanguage of the modern visual information environment in which humanity is immersed." The presented thesis is quite fair. Although the reviewer notes that not only the modern visual information environment immerses a person in design, and if you identify design with a metalanguage, then this language allows people to communicate through millennia, penetrate into the depths of ancient cultures, decoding the results of the semiurgy of the ancient masters. The scientific novelty presented in the author's system of essential characteristics of design as a cultural phenomenon (final conclusion) is well founded and trustworthy. The style is generally scientific, although, as noted above, some of the author's judgments contradict the result and need correction or clarification. In addition, it is necessary to carefully proofread the text for descriptions (for example, "using a simulacrum"). The structure of the article generally corresponds to the logic of presenting the results of scientific research, although the reviewer notes that the study of design as a cultural phenomenon in Russian scientific discourse is a fairly extensive body of systematic research, therefore, at least a brief overview of the work of colleagues over the past 3-5 years is necessary (for example, on the pages of the journal Culture and Art develops this topic, in particular, A.V. Pankratova — you should read the magazine in which the author is going to publish): A lively discussion by scientists studying one topic, in any case, significantly enhances the scientific value of the publication. The bibliography as a whole reveals the problematic field of research at a sufficient level (although few works of colleagues over the past 3-5 years are presented, the works of foreign colleagues of recent times are not presented, as if design as a cultural phenomenon is of no interest to anyone abroad today, which is not true). The appeal to the opponents is quite correct and sufficient, with the exception of the author's contradictory judgments mentioned above, related to a narrow understanding of design as a social practice, which have no theoretical basis. Of course, the interest of the readership of the journal "Culture and Art" in the article submitted for review will be much higher after a little revision, taking into account the comments of the reviewer.

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The author submitted his article "Design as a cultural phenomenon" to the magazine "Culture and Art", in which a cultural and philosophical understanding of design was carried out. The author proceeds in studying this issue from the fact that design is close to art in its philosophical content, however, it has its own specifics. The cultural understanding of design can cover various aspects of this phenomenon. The author considers design as one of the categories of aesthetics. In this study, design as a cultural phenomenon is compared with the phenomenon of art, and in this comparison, the specifics of design are revealed. Design, as a cultural phenomenon, is inherent in man from the very beginning, and that is why the author shows a special scientific interest in what exactly the specificity of the design phenomenon manifests itself, where this cultural phenomenon is distinguished from the phenomenon of art. The relevance of the research is due to the widespread spread of this phenomenon and the use of design in many areas of human activity. The purpose of this study is to identify the specifics of design in comparison with the phenomenon of art based on a functional approach to the classification of aesthetic categories by V.V. Bychkov. The object of the study is culture in terms of its aesthetic component (art and design). The subject of the study is design as a cultural phenomenon. The methodological basis was made up of comparative, cultural and philosophical analysis. The theoretical basis was the works of such researchers as D. Ruskin, A. Loos, G.N. Lola, P.E. Rodkin, V.V. Bychkov and others. This article is a continuation of the author's series of studies on design. Having analyzed the degree of scientific elaboration of the problem, the author notes a large number of theoretical studies and practical recommendations on design. At the same time, the author notes that the phenomenon itself existed long before its comprehension in the works of both modern practitioners and design theorists. The author divides the history of design into two uneven periods: implicit and explicit. The implicit history of design is the history of the subject world and the visual environment before the advent of the design profession in the 1950s. The explicit history of design is the period of the existence of design as a profession, as a social practice and as a subject of theoretical understanding. In his research, the author relies on a system of aesthetic categories developed by V.V. Bychkov. Classifying aesthetic categories, the author identifies two meta–categories of aesthetics - art and aesthetic. Art is a universal way of concretely sensual expression of non–verbalized spiritual experience, primarily aesthetic. Aesthetic is a meta–category, a sphere of subject-object relations in which the perception of an object or the idea of it is accompanied by disinterested, disinterested pleasure. The author determines the specifics of the philosophical content of the category "design", for which he demarcated the category "design" from the categories "art" and "aesthetic". The author identifies the following specific characteristics of design: functionality (expediency, practicality); aesthetic pluralism; mass character, equality of ideas; scientific, technical and positivist prerequisites for the emergence; development of simulacra ("design thing"); immanence, semiurgy. In conclusion, the author presents a conclusion on the conducted research, which contains all the key provisions of the presented material. It seems that the author in his material touched upon relevant and interesting issues for modern socio-humanitarian knowledge, choosing a topic for analysis, consideration of which in scientific research discourse will entail certain changes in the established approaches and directions of analysis of the problem addressed in the presented article. The results obtained allow us to assert that the study of the phenomenon of design as an immanent component of human existence is of undoubted theoretical and practical cultural interest and can serve as a source of further research. The material presented in the work has a clear, logically structured structure that contributes to a more complete assimilation of the material. This is also facilitated by an adequate choice of an appropriate methodological framework. The bibliography of the study consisted of 26 sources, which seems sufficient for generalization and analysis of scientific discourse on the subject under study. The author fulfilled his goal, received certain scientific results that allowed him to summarize the material. It should be noted that the article may be of interest to readers and deserves to be published in a reputable scientific publication.