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Document Details : Title: Inspiring Design? Subtitle: How Western Mysticism, along Guidance by Michel de Certeau and Cusanus, may Inspire and Support Design Critique Author(s): VAN LAWICK VAN PABST, Jeroen A. Journal: Studies in Spirituality Volume: 34 Date: 2025 Pages: 181-211 DOI: 10.2143/SIS.34.0.3294894 Abstract : Designer-scholars have started to critique our modern technocracy and design’s detrimental role therein in order to redesign design and the world towards better futures. Like design critique, Western mysticism can be understood as critique to modernity’s technocracy. However the potential contribution of Western mysticism’s thinking and practices to design critique remained obscure so far. This paper aims to explore how Western mysticism may provide a way to think through, inspire and support design critique. We look through the lens of mysticism, by works of Michel de Certeau and Cusanus, to designer-scholars’ dealing with uncertainty, ambiguity and not-knowing as encountered in their critical interacting with a complex world. Insights are extracted; design critique may transform into a spiritual way of the designerscholar, feeding into design leadership. Overall Western mysticism may offer an unexpected yet relevant perspective to what design critique thematizes nowadays. Limitations and suggestions for further study are presented. |
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