Maker's Knowledge: Core belief, part of iA’s Metaphysics. The core of Maker’s Knowledge is that we only fully understand what we make. While the idea may not seem intuitive at first, it simply says that the best way to understand anything is by making it. We can only conclusively understand what we made ourselves. Maker’s Knowledge can be experienced and verified easily. Reading 100 cooking books won’t turn you into a cook. Cooking will. Reading cookbooks can help you cook better, but only if you cook the recipes. Reading grammar books can help you with reading and writing, but to really learn a language you need to speak it with others.
Maker’s Knowledge is part of an esoteric philosophical tradition, often referred to by the notion of verum factum, as in Verum esse ipsum factum (“Truth is itself something made”). It was shaped by Giambattista Vico in strict opposition to the spiritualist traditions of Plato and, even more so, Descartes. Being the aristocratic Greek he was, Plato looked down on people who had to make an earning using their hands. Disrespect for the working people, also known as banausos was a common blind spot in Greek high culture. Descartes famously declared that the only thing we can’t doubt is that we think. Vico turned Descartes on his head and declared that the only thing we know through and through are the things we make. His perspective seems ultra-modern, but it is part of a philosophical tradition connected to Aristotle and Socrates. As designers, Maker’s Knowledge is more accessible because we put thought into things until they become materialized thought (compared to Kitsch). Maker’s Knowledge explains why we experience good design as more real than relativity theory.