This paper explores the potentials of pragmatist philosophy to enrich the discourse on design creativity in general and the concept of constraints specifically. The concept of constraints is central in vanguard creativity research, and recent contributions have begun to explore constraints as nuanced and situated phenomena. In this paper, we argue that pragmatism can inspire and inform the study of constraints in design creativity by offering a coherent and well-developed frame of understanding how designerly inquiry unfolds as a complex interplay between the designer and the resources at hand in the situation, which may continuously alternate between constraining and enabling roles, or even take on both roles simultaneously.
Original language
English
Title of host publication
Proceedings of the 2nd International Conference on Design Creativity
Editors
A. Duffy, Y. Nagai, T. Taura
Number of pages
8
Volume
1
Place of publication
Somerset
Publisher
Design Society
Publication year
18 Sep 2012
Pages
65-74
ISBN (print)
978-1-904670-39-1
Publication status
Published - 18 Sep 2012
Event
International Conference on Design Creativity - Glasgow, United Kingdom Duration: 18 Sep 2012 → 20 Oct 2012 Conference number: 2