16 2 TheProblemsofDesign methodology, claim the following with respect to design. This is “the myth of objectivism”, summarized and modified (Lakoffand Johnson1980, p. 186): • To the extent that scientists are objective, science is rational. To the extent that designers are subjective, to design is irrational and is to give in to the emotions. • Whereas scientists are objective, designers are subjective indulgers since they emphasize the importanceof the personal point of view. • Scientists are objective and always fair. Therefore they can avoid personal prejudice and a biased view of the external world. • Science provides us with a methodology that allows us to be fair, understanding things from a universally valid and unbiased point of view. On the other hand, design relies on the personal judgments of a designer. • Scientists deal with only objective knowledge that is absolute knowledge. They speak objective language that is clearly and precisely defined, that is straightforward and direct, and that can fit reality. Designers use poetic, fanciful, rhetorical, and figurative language in ways such that meanings are not clear and precise and do not fit reality in an obvious way. • There is an objective reality, and scientists can say things that are objectively, absolutely, and unconditionally true and false about it. Illusions, errors of perception, errors of judgment, emotions, and personal and cultural biases are humanerror. • Scientists believe that the world is made up of objects that have properties independent of any people or other beings that experience them. For example, a rock is a separate object and it is hard. • Scientists believe that we obtain knowledge of the world by experiencing the objects in it and getting to know what properties the objects have and how these objects are related to one another. Therefore they believe that subjective thought andintuitioncanbedangerous,sincetheycanbeleadtolosingtouchwithreality. Viewedfromthesemythicalperspectives,thepositionofsciencereflectstheview that the external world needs to be understood so that humans can live properly in it. The position of design is focused on internal aspects of understanding the world. Designers intend to address what makes human life meaningful and worth living. On the other hand, the position of science says that, for example, the elements of the universe as separated from each other, divisible and wholly isolated. TheCognition-ActionDichotomy In his Discourse on Methods (1637), Descartes argued that we exist as thinking beings, different from brute animals. The world is made up of two separated sub- stances; physicalsubstances(bodies)andmentalsubstances(minds).ThisCartesian view underlies much of science, and has allowed vast areas of understanding of previously mysterious phenomena to develop and flourish. On the other hand, the dichotomy has brought undesirable effects, and is even reflected in HCI, in