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What is a human? the ontology of personhood and human-centred design
Thesis (PhD (Information Design))--University of Pretoria, 2024.
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| Format: | Thesis |
| Language: | English |
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University of Pretoria
2025
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| _version_ | 1867613472811909120 |
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| access_status_str | Open Access |
| author2 | Reyburn, Duncan |
| author_browse | Reyburn, Duncan |
| author_facet | Reyburn, Duncan |
| collection | Thesis |
| dc_rights_str_mv | © 2023 University of Pretoria. All rights reserved. The copyright in this work vests in the University of Pretoria. No part of this work may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of the University of Pretoria. |
| description | Thesis (PhD (Information Design))--University of Pretoria, 2024. |
| format | Thesis |
| id | oai:repository.up.ac.za:2263/101043 |
| institution | University of Pretoria (South Africa) |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2026-06-10T12:36:41.872Z |
| license_str | Other — see source repository |
| provenance_str_mv | Harvested via OAI-PMH from UPSpace — University of Pretoria Institutional Repository |
| publishDate | 2025 |
| publishDateRange | 2025 |
| publishDateSort | 2025 |
| publisher | University of Pretoria |
| publisherStr | University of Pretoria |
| record_format | dspace |
| source_str | UPSpace — University of Pretoria Institutional Repository |
| spelling | oai:repository.up.ac.za:2263/101043 What is a human? the ontology of personhood and human-centred design Reyburn, Duncan marno.kirstein@gmail.com Kirstein, Marno Johan UCTD Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) Personhood Human-centred design Ontology of personhood HCDM HcD Thesis (PhD (Information Design))--University of Pretoria, 2024. For the last few decades, human-centred design has increasingly been a dominant paradigm in communication design. The Human-centred Design Movement (HCDM) is broadly motivated by three core ethical concerns: (1) environmental sustainability, (2) sustainable social development, and (3) designs that improve human lives by one metric or another. Despite these lofty concerns, the field continues to be beleaguered by unethical practices—even in the sub-disciplines that developed within HCDM. I argue that HCDM has faltered in its aims because it is based on human centred design principles (HcD) that fail to grapple with its primary subject: namely, to understand what a human being is, at an ontological level. Its current approach is to describe humanness in terms of design epistemology, but this demonstrates a fundamental misunderstanding of ethics, which is necessarily personalist. In this study I form a multi-disciplinary hermeneutic drawing on Schelerian phenomenology, Ricoeurian hermeneutics and Franklian existenzanalyse to form a more robust and coherent picture of the ontology of personhood. I critically examine the claims and commitments of HCDM through these disciplinary lenses to identify the gaps, false dichotomies and false equivocations that have hamstrung its attempts to improve disciplinary ethics in communication design. By the end of the study, I make recommendations for the way ahead, suggesting falsehoods that HCDM scholars need to stop perpetuating, truths they need to tell, and questions they need to answer. Visual Arts PhD (Information Design) Unrestricted Faculty of Humanities 2025-02-19T10:10:48Z 2025-02-19T10:10:48Z 2025-04 2024-02 Thesis * A2025 http://hdl.handle.net/2263/101043 No datasets used en © 2023 University of Pretoria. All rights reserved. The copyright in this work vests in the University of Pretoria. No part of this work may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of the University of Pretoria. application/pdf University of Pretoria |
| spellingShingle | UCTD Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) Personhood Human-centred design Ontology of personhood HCDM HcD What is a human? the ontology of personhood and human-centred design |
| title | What is a human? the ontology of personhood and human-centred design |
| title_full | What is a human? the ontology of personhood and human-centred design |
| title_fullStr | What is a human? the ontology of personhood and human-centred design |
| title_full_unstemmed | What is a human? the ontology of personhood and human-centred design |
| title_short | What is a human? the ontology of personhood and human-centred design |
| title_sort | what is a human the ontology of personhood and human centred design |
| topic | UCTD Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) Personhood Human-centred design Ontology of personhood HCDM HcD |
| url | http://hdl.handle.net/2263/101043 |