Abstract

Design between Persuasion and Rhetoric. Footnotes to Peter Sloterdijk What is design? In this article we’ll try to explain how design is a phenomena of contemporary world, as an expression of the power typical of human being. In this regard, design, is conceived from the point of view of “operativeness”, and it shows how post-modernism is born from modernism, with no empowerment from a logic of power. Furthermore design shows several points of contacts with the ancient rhetoric: both of them work as “simulators of sovereignty”, by giving a power otherwise impossible to give. Rhetoric, ritual, power: through these three categories we are going to rethink design as one of the events more fascinating of postmodernism.