The usual method of designing a solution for a problem, which applies general principles to a specific situation, tends to overlook the unique features of each situation and so must inevitably efface the very structure of what it means to create, and so resolve diversity and plurality into blank uniformity. This is grave problem which a renewed attention to the individuality of things might help resolve. This project considers the criticism of several thinkers (including John Duns Scotus, Martin Heidegger, Theodor Adorno, and J.C. Jones) on the schema of general and particular that undergirds the engineering design method. It then seeks to open up further the suggestions these thinkers have for a new approach to the design method not enthralled to an understanding of general categories, but grounded in a contemplation of the individual.