Ideas, as linguistic phenomena function at several levels of human language. Karl Popper, the philosopher (1902-1994), talks about higher and lower functions of language. Accordingly, the lower functions of language are self-expression and signalling whereas the two most important higher functions of human languages are the descriptive function and the argumentative function. Popper holds that the lower two functions are always present when the higher ones are present. Moreover, he regards the role of argument as important as observation and experiment. Now, if relating Popper's line of thought to ideation, one might say that idea generation corresponds to self-expression and signalling whereas idea communication compares to the descriptive function and the argumentative function. That is, designers generate ideas (self-expression) and communicate ideas (descriptive function and argumentative function), which constitute the ideation process. And so, self-expression is always present in the idea argument which reflects the transient nature of ideas, that is, ideas may always be replaced by other ideas. In other words, argumentation is an important part of ideation, or "proving" the idea.
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