Architectonic
Architecture is the art and science of designing buildings. A wider definition would include within its scope the design of the total built environment, from the macrolevel of town planning, urban design, and landscape to the microlevel of furniture and product design. Architecture, equally importantly, also refers to the product of such a design.
According to the earliest surviving work on the subject, Vitruvius' On Architecture, good building should have Beauty (Venustas), Firmness (Firmitas) and Utility (Utilitas); architecture can be said to be a balance and coordination among these three elements, with none overpowering the others. A modern day definition sees architecture as addressing functional, aesthetic, and psychological considerations. However, looked at another way, function itself is seen as encompassing all criteria, including aesthetic and psychological ones.
Architecture is a multi-disciplinary field, including within its fold mathematics, science, art, technology, social sciences, politics, history, philosophy, and so on. In Vitruvius' words, "Architecture is a science, arising out of many other sciences, and adorned with much and varied learning: by the help of which a judgement is formed of those works which are the result of other arts". He adds that an architect should be well versed in fields such as music, astronomy, etc. Philosophy is a particular favourite; in fact one frequently refers to the philosophy of each architect when one means the approach. Rationalism, empiricism, structuralism, poststructuralism, and phenomenology are some directions from philosophy influencing architecture.
overemphasised, though many architects shun theory. Vitruvius continues: "Practice and theory are its parents. Practice is the frequent and continued contemplation of the mode of executing any given work, or of the mere operation of the hands, for the conversion of the material in the best and readiest way. Theory is the result of that reasoning which demonstrates and explains that the material wrought has been so converted as to answer the end proposed. Wherefore the mere practical architect is not able to assign sufficient reasons for the forms he adopts; and the theoretic architect also fails, grasping the shadow instead of the substance. He who is theoretic as well as practical, is therefore doubly armed; able not only to prove the propriety of his design, but equally so to carry it into execution".
The difference between architecture and building is a subject matter that has engaged the attention of many. According to Nikolaus Pevsner, European historian of the early 20th century, "A bicycle shed is a building, Lincoln Cathedral is a piece of architecture". In current thinking, the division is not too clear. Bernard Rudofsky's famous Architecture Without Architects consolidated a whole range of structures designed by ordinary people into the realm of architecture. The further back in history one goes, the greater is the consensus on what architecture is or is not, possibly because time is an efficient filter. If like Vitruvius we consider architecture as good building, then does it mean that bad architecture does not exist? To resolve this dilemma, especially with the increasing number of buildings in the world today, architecture can also be defined as what an architect does. This would then place the emphasis on the evolution of architecture and the architect.
Architecture first evolved out of the dynamics between needs (conducive environmental conditions, security, etc.) and means (available building materials and construction technology). Prehistoric and primitive architecture constitute this early stage. As humans progressed and knowledge began to be formalised through oral traditions and practices, architecture evolved into a craft. Here there is first a process of trial and error, and later improvisation or replication of a successful trial. The architect is not the sole important figure; he is merely part of a continuing tradition. What is termed as Vernacular architecture today falls under this mode and still continues to be produced in many parts of the world.
Early human settlements were essentially rural. As surplus of production began to occur, rural societies transformed into urban ones. The complexity of buildings and their types increased. General civil construction such as roads and bridges began to be built. Many new building types such as schools, hospitals, and recreational facilities emerged. Religious architecture retained its primacy in most societies. Architectural styles developed and texts on architecture began to be written. These became canons to be followed in important works, especially religious architecture. Some examples of canons are the works of Vitruvius and Vaastu Shastra in ancient India. In Europe in the Classical and Medieval periods, buildings were not attributed to specific individual architects who remained anonymous. Guilds were formed by craftsmen to organise their trade.
With the Renaissance and its emphasis on the individual and humanity rather than religion, and with all its attendant progess and achievements, a new chapter began. Buildings were ascribed to specific architects - Michaelangelo, Brunelleschi, Leonardo da Vinci - and the cult of the individual had begun. But there was no dividing line between artist, architect and engineer, or any of the related vocations. At this stage, it was still possible for an artist to design a bridge as the level of structural calculations involved were within the scope of the generalist.
With the consolidation of knowledge in scientific fields such as engineering and the rise of new materials and technology, the architect began to lose ground on the technical aspects of building. He therefore cornered for himself another playing field - that of aesthetics. There was the rise of the "gentleman architect" who usually dealt with wealthy clients and concentrated predominantly on visual qualities derived usually from historical prototypes. In the 19th century Ecole des Beaux Arts in France, the training was toward producing quick sketch schemes involving beautiful drawings without much emphasis on context.
Meanwhile, the Industrial Revolution laid open the door for mass consumption and aesthetics started becoming a criterion even for the middle class as ornamented products, once within the province of expensive craftmanship, became cheaper under machine production. Such products lacked the beauty and honesty associated with the expression of the process in the product.
The dissatisfaction with such a general situation at the turn of the twentieth century gave rise to many new lines of thought that in architecture served as precursors to Modern Architecture. Notable among these is the Deutscher Werkbund, formed in 1907 to produce better quality machine made objects. The rise of the profession of industrial design is usually placed here. Following this lead, the Bauhaus school, founded in Germany in 1919, consciously rejected history and looked at architecture as a synthesis of art, craft, and technology.
When Modern architecture first began to be practiced, it was an avant garde movement with moral, philosophical, and aesthetic underpinnings. Truth was sought by rejecting history and turning to function as the generator of form. Architects became prominent figures and were termed masters. Later modern architecture moved into the realm of mass production due to its simplicity and economy.
However, a reductive quality began to be perceived in modern architecture by the general public from the 1960s. Some reasons cited for this are its perceived lack of meaning, sterility, ugliness, uniformity, and psychological effects.
The architectural profession responded to this partly by attempting a more populist architecture at the visual level, even if at the expense of sacrificing depth for shallowness, a direction called Postmodernism. Robert Venturi's contention that a "decorated shed" (an ordinary building which is functionally designed inside and embellished on the outside) was better than a "duck" (a building in which the whole form and its function are considered together) gives an idea of this approach.
Another part of the profession, and also some non-architects, responded by going to what they considered the root of the problem. They felt that architecture was not a personal philosophical or aesthetic pursuit by individualists; rather it had to consider everyday needs of people and use technology to give a livable environment. The Design Methodology Movement involving people such as Chris Jones, Christopher Alexander started searching for a more inclusive process of design in order to lead to a better product. Extensive studies on areas such as behavioural, environmental, and social sciences were done and started informing the design process.
As many other concerns began to be recognised and complexity of buildings began to increase in terms of aspects such as services, architecture started becoming more multi-disciplinary than ever. Architecture now required a team of professionals in its making, an architect being one among the many, sometimes the leader, sometimes not. This is the state of the profession today. However, individuality is still cherished and sought for in the design of buildings seen as cultural symbols - the museum or fine arts centre has become a showcase for new experiments in style: today Deconstructivism, tomorrow maybe something else.
Buildings are the most visible productions of man ever. However, most of them are still designed by people themselves or masons as in developing countries, or through standardised production as in developed countries. The architect remains at the fringes of building production. The skills of the architect are sought only in complex building types or those seen as cultural and political symbols. And this is what the public perceives as architecture. The role of the architect, though changing, has not been central and never autonomous. There is always a dialogue between society and the architect. And what results from this dialogue can be termed architecture - as a product and as a discipline.
Sollertia Architectonica
By Marco Frascari.
Monday, October 29, 2001
The role of architects is to make visible the invisible by using a clever technique or better by proceeding in a cunning way. The key element of architects’ efforts is not the construction of buildings, but it is rather the elaboration of drawings and models as operative predictions of future edifices and their processes of construction. One of the chief aspects of any architectural practice is the architect’s elaboration of the built milieu performed at a distance and generally through the power of visual representations. This essential characteristic of architectural work assumes that we have to sense how architects describe buildings if we are to realize how clever drawings might help architects in designing buildings.
To be cunning is a virtue and a morally guided cunningness must be loved and embraced in order for architects to be part of our constructed environment. Architects must appreciate the virtue of cunningness in an undeniable reality, since it essential that in their professional work they must develop effortlessly tactics of construction out of their constructs when they draw lines on paper, knowing well that they have architectural virtues to guard.
Architects inaugurate constructed representation in edifices by elaborating graphic representations. A representation is something that stands for something else; it is a cunning procedure; buildings are built in virtue of tactical representations. A representational status is a matter of how physical entities are used, and more specifically it is not a matter of actual causation, information, specifications or code relations with intentional object building. Nowadays, in the majority of architectural offices, a myriad of drawings and models are brought into being in digital formats using Computer-Aided-Design (CAD), Building Information Management (BIM) and other visual media tools. Digital media have absolutely transmogrified the way by which many architects accomplish the daily activities of design. These changes have progressed to be in control of both the mundane and sacred attitudes of practice and teaching architectural design have become based on strategies rather then on tactics. Making architecture the result of devices or strategies of power rather then the result of tactics of resistance aiming to a merging of three arts, the arts of living well, the building well and thinking well. The understanding these new tactic of resistance are essential to avoid that a culture which was for long time cunningly oral and then essentially artfully chirographic can become slave to controlling strategies
Unquestionably, on the one hand digital systems have made the daily inconsequential architectural procedures strategically efficient, but on the other hand, digital systems have been of little benefit—if not of hindrance—in conditions where architectural tactics have to be conjectural and speculative in nature, as during the multiple beginnings which mark any authentic process of architectural design. The countless failed efforts carried out to inaugurate CAD and other cyber drafting procedures into the critical aspects of architectural design reveal the anachronisms existing between the demands of a virtuous design and the a-critical configuration of the digital media available tools.
The production of many components, the visualization and simulation of environmental performance are now evaluated and judged by the computer: complex 3D models of whole buildings, functional locations, products costs and quantities evaluations are all read from virtual modeling.
As information age technology continues to evolve, it implements increasingly complex tasks with less and less thought and input from the user. Currently, we are assisted by strategic electronic agents, wizards’ templates and guides which do not any longer limit themselves to advise us on how to do the thing we want to do, they just do it, sometimes without our asking, often without our knowing, usually without our understanding. As an expected consequence of these support devices, the use of digital processing turns out to be easier, digital applications become more predictable. However, an unforeseen domino effect of this process is that we become less involved. De-skilled and morally less implicated our capacity for ethical judgment is consequently delegated to the cyber black boxes of these agents, wizards and guides, mindless genies evoked by a light stroke of the keyboard or the click of the mouse ready to produce whatever we whish! No matter how, or why.
In the first paragraph of the first chapter of the first book of his architectural primer, Vitruvius suggests that construction were a meditated carry out of buildings. Then he advances the idea that theory is a graphic illustration devised to explain cunningly constructed objects. Sollertia, an act of cunning judgement, is an essential intellectual procedure to build any construction.
Sollertia, a clever sense, is the cardinal virtue in both practicing and theorizing of architecture. Sollertia is the fundamental virtue for a prudent, resourceful, well-educated and ingenious architect. Good architecture is possible only when an architect is expert (peritus) and gifted with a quick and dexterous intelligence (ingegno mobili sollertiaque) (Vitruvius V,6,vii). Happily (feliciter) concluding his treatise, in the last book, the Roman writer generates a remarkable propaganda line for the profession. In the last paragraph of the book, Vitruvius declares that, during wars, cities can free themselves from enemies by relying on the cunning intelligence of their architects (architectorum sollarties sunt|libertae) (Vitruvius X, 16,xii).
Sollertia is the Roman translation of what the Greeks called metis.
This quick-wit is a crucial mental operation for any compassed architect who hurries up slowly. Aldo Manuzio, the great publisher of the late Venetian Renaissance, printed his books under the logo of an ancient Latin saying: FESTINA LENTE, hurry up slowly. To mark his productions in a meaningful way Manuzio used an emblem taken from an illustration of the Hypnerotomachia Polifili, (Poliphilo’s Strife of Love in a Dream), printed in Venice in 1499. This is the most mysterious book printed by the Venetian publisher, a book that reads very slowly but its narrative develops at a dreamlike speed.
A sinuous dolphin quivering around a heavy anchor composes the Hypnerotomachia Polifili emblem. The books published in Manuzio’s printing shop are characterized by a slow elaboration anchored to a tradition of printing accuracy while their reading will quickly stimulate quivering thoughts.
The book art of Manuzio proves the discovery of slowness is essential for the discovery of speed. To discover speed, it is necessary to discover slowness. Unless they are reached through a slow elaboration, human outcomes turn out to be utterly convulsive efforts.
The objects equipped with speed can only derive from slow and meditated construction. Meditated construction is a building event quickly executed while the construction of an object for speed is slowly executed. This polarity of execution is to be found in the measuring unit that switches from spatial to temporal condition.
We can represent speed metaphorically through the swift movements of the hands of a mason building a brick vault destined to be eternal, while we can represent slow execution with the slow construction of a racing car which will allow us to speedily move from one point to another. Both processes yield a saving of time, since they give us time to loose. On the one hand, no longer we have to daily build dwelling space because our dwelling is now eternally lasting and so we have time to move around as much as we want. On the other hand, our moving from one place another is nowadays nearly immediate as a result; we can spend our time contemplating the eternity of a swiftly built brick vault.
Sollertia is mobility of thought and caution of execution or seeing in the past and in the future at the same time. This multiple dual nature of sollertia is essential to any craftsperson in producing contrivances that will become significant attributes for those who possesses them.
Sollertia is potentiality. It is the power of one “who can take in a situation at a glance” and can solve problems could not be forecast in the plotting of a project.
Sollertia’s bipolar nature is part of the rhetorical chiasm artfully used by Vitruvius to define architecture as a prudent profession. The practice of construction is based on a reflective (meditatio) labor whereas the theoretical demonstrations are based on craftiness (sollertia).
On the one hand, sollertia is a particular kind of intelligence that is based on a compassed prudence. On the other hand, sollertia requires a quick mind, able of presaging the problems of artful constructions. Accordingly, sollertia is a wily knowledge that dwells between slow formulas and quick metaphors. For instance, in Classical Architecture, the Orders are defined by metaphoric references to female and male bodies and by formulas defining the proportions existing between the diameter and the other dimensions of the column and the intercolumnation. Sollertia is forewarned prudence, a meditated procedure of construction enlightened by flashes of intuition.
The mythicalDaedalus is one who invented the glue-paste, the fish-glue (isinglass), the saw, the axe, the drill and the plumb line. These tools speed up the work, thus we can spend more time in the contemplation of our artifacts. Daedalus’ sollertia reveals itself as a constructive thought balanced between slow numerical formulations and swift metaphorical images, between slow appraisals and flashing visions, between organic metaphors of the artificial and inorganic vision of organisms, between what is humanly perfunctory and what is intricately human.
Daedalus is remembered as the builder of amazing statues who would move by themselves and could not stand still. To prevent their running away were chained to their pedestals. A criminal, Daedalus murdered Talos, his sister’s son who was also his apprentice. The young apprentice invented two fantastic tools, the compass and the metal saw. Out of envy, Daedalus killed Thalos-Circinus by throwing him down from the highest point of the Acropolis.
Although the different versions of the myth do not say anything about it, it is evident that Daedalus was upset because his nephew, in showing the use of the compass, was revealing the secret of the statues: the legs of the compass were the legs of the figures
To meditate is to construct a plot and a plan is woven. A physical expression of sollertia is the use of a “line” which allows the cutting of beams and planks straight.
The lines and the plumb lines used by master masons in laying the bricks during the building walls are all expressions of metis. Used to comment the proper accomplishment of something, an Italian saying “executing something following the line and the mark (per filo e per segno) is a snappy language codification of sollertia. It derives from the use of a line or strong string deepened in colored dust by mason and painters to mark by a snap line walls and floors.
Sollertia has its origin in the art or techne of weaving. All the “lines” used in other crafts requiring metis derive from the “lines” used in a loom. The tracing on the ground of the future building shows clearly the textile origin of construction. On a construction site, pull between battered boards; the tracing lines mark the plan of a future building. This site marking looks like a huge horizontal loom, showing that a plan of an edifice is woven, just as fishing or hunting net. The plumb line also derives from the weights used to keep in tension the woof in the loom.
Probably, this phenomenological derivation explains why the majority of architects prefer to use parallel bars instead of versatile drafting machines, during their designing. A parallel-bar is just a portable loom for weaving the lines of a plan or of an elevation, by running a square back and forth as a shuttle, waiting for a design occasion.
The design occasion and the tactic of drawing rules the work of Mario Ridolfi used layers of heavy tracing paper (carta da lucido) and a fountain pen. These drawings were also completed with a skillful use of scissors and adhesive transparent tape. Ridolfi’s use of freehand drawing ranged from first sketches to refined perspectival presentation and from dreamy site planning to precise construction documents. They are tactical drawings of a an “architetto solerte” since he knows that the tactical has no need of a complete specificity of place or site, as it intelligently adjusts across multiple scales and sites on the sheet of his carta lucida. His sign is vibrant and has the magic-realistic qualities of the of the astonishing architectural background delineated by George Herriman for the comic strip Krazy Kat.
The intense and vibrating fountain pen etching imparts to Ridolfi’s drawings an appearance that is at the same time hyper-realistic and magic. Analogical expressions of the processes of construction, Ridolfi’s drawings are delightful expression of the calligrams of technography. Visual descrip¬tion of not visible processes, they are con¬ceived not to be read as prescriptions, but as visual suggestions and evocations carrying out a multi-layered display of tectonic intents. They are a building on paper, a lucid constructive dream on carta da lucido to which a building on site will concurs, later on. They are well-tempered and provident drawings sagaciously demonstrating a building rather than preposterously specifying it. The lines, the shadows, the strokes and the contours of freehand drawings are magical signs. The comprehension of the difference between the desire of imitation and the magic of transformation is the crucial means of access to the proper use of lines on paper for conjuring up building.
The positive power of the material mediation by graphic signs ascribable to the notational character of design is instituted by the merging of analytical and symbolic properties; discreteness, finite numbers, combinatory power, pictograms hieroglyphs and ideograms, all of which epitomizes direct, prudent and temperate inscription of human thoughts on paper.
Kant's Architectonic Turn as a Model for Philosophic Practice:
The Philosopher as Architect, Teacher, or Friend?
I. Introduction: Kant's Architectonic Turn
Paula has distinguished between two types of philosophy, based on what Kant calls the 'school-concept' versus the 'world-concept', respectively. The former approaches the discussion of metaphysical concepts through the use of dogmatic argumentation and ultimately ends in ruin, whereas the latter adopts a teleological approach, treating architectonic more as a practical art than as a logical science. Paula has claimed that Kant compared the false approach to philosophizing with the work of an architect and its genuine alternative with the work of a contractor. In a moment I shall defend the opposite view. But first, let us take a closer look at what Kant meant by the term 'architectonic'.
Although I know of no textual evidence enabling us to say for certain how well Kant was acquainted with the Greek and Latin traditions relating to architectonic, it seems reasonable to assume that he was very familiar with his immediate predecessors' use of the term, and likely that he was at least acquainted with the ancient tradition as well. If we recall, however, that Kant left virtually no historical stone unturned in his revolutionary approach to philosophy, then the question of just how much he drew from his predecessors can be set aside in favor of the more pressing question of what the notion of archietectonic philosophy looked like after it passed through the sieve of Kant's Critical mind.
There is little if any doubt in the literature on two points of Kant-interpretation: first, that Kant regarded his philosophy as effecting what he called a "Copernican revolution" in philosophy; second, that he attempted to construct his philosophical System in accordance with his own conception of an architectonic plan. What has not often been understood (because Kant himself did not explicitly say so) is that these two aspects go together in a way that is more than just accidental. In other words, a proper understanding of Kant's Copernican revolution requires some mention of the necessarily architectonic character of all true philosophizing. Let us therefore look briefly at Kant's conception of the Copernican turn.
In the Preface to the second edition of the first Critique Kant attempts to gain insight for a new approach to philosophy by reflecting on the methods adopted by several well-grounded sciences. He claims that the disciplines of logic, mathematics (especially geometry), and the natural sciences (especially physics) all share several features in common: those responsible for transforming these areas into genuine sciences proceeded according to a predetermined plan that imposed a self-determined limitation on the subject-matter, and came to recognize that whatever was complete and certain in their conclusions was based not on something that was drawn from the object of their inquiry, but on something they themselves had read into it. After arguing that these features also characterize Copernicus' revolutionary approach to astronomy, Kant proposes to perform an experiment whereby the same guiding principles are used to undergo a critical examination of reason's own powers. This "Copernican revolution in philosophy" requires us to assume from the outset that the most philosophically-interesting aspects of our knowledge (namely, those that exhibit necessity and universality) are imposed on the "world" of our knowledge by the mind itself. These aspects Kant regards as the formal aspects of knowledge, while whatever is contingent and nonuniversal in our knowledge is derived from its material.
Although Kant does not explicitly say so in the second edition Preface, many of his comments clearly imply that his Copernican revolution is closely related to his conception of architectonic. For instance, in the very first paragraph, he states that metaphysical knowledge will only begin to "follow the secure path of a science" when its participants can agree on a "common plan of procedure" [CPR ??]. As we shall see, this "plan", the need for which Kant constantly reiterates, is nothing other than the architectonic ordering of all the parts that properly belong to "the idea of the whole", and is closely associated with the table of 12 categories. I have described the formal structure of this twelvefold architectonic plan in numerous previous publications, including the paper I presented as last year's Third International Conference on Philosophical Practice, so I will not rehearse that argument here. Instead, it will suffice merely to say that for Kant, whenever we interpret the world architectonically (i.e., by imposing a form onto the world rather than by viewing the world as an "aggregate" of items that we merely collect), reason divides the world into twofold and threefold relations, with the most significant type of relation being composed of two twofold relations (i.e., the four main categories), with each having three subordinate subrelations. (2x2x3=12)
II. Two Views of How Kant's Architectonic Provides a Model for Phil Practice
Having sketched Kant's understanding of the Copernican turn and its relation to his conception of architectonic, I shall now argue that Kant's conception is based, implicitly if not explicitly, on an analogy between philosophical practice and the work of an architect. I should make clear at the outset that if this notion of the philosopher as architect is opposed to some of the classical meanings given to the term "architectonic", this on its own could not be regarded as evidence against my view, for such a fact could just as easily be taken to indicate how far Kant was departing from his tradition.
What then does it mean to practice philosophy? Kant's answer to this question would begin by pointing out that authentic philosophy is fundamentally an action-a doing in the world-not merely a set of arguments or beliefs that form a purely academic discipline. For as Kant says in the Architectonic chapter near the end of the first Critique, "philosophy can never be learned, save only in historical fashion; as regards what concerns reason, we can at most learn to philosophise" [CPR 657ks=].
What action is being performed by the philosophical practioner? In one sense, of course, there can be many correct answers to this question. But I believe they all share in common one (Copernican) characteristic: the philosopher designs or co-creates the reality he or she is examining. Whereas the school-philosophers regard themselves as passively examining an objective reality that exists totally independently of the human knower or agent, the world-philosophers regard themselves as participating in the creation of the world they inhabit. As Paula has quite correctly pointed out, Kant's philosophy is thoroughly teleological in its ultimate direction and aim. The "essential ends of reason" [CPR 657ks=] are for Kant the three ideas of reason (i.e., God, freedom and immortality). As Kant explains in the Architectonic chapter, these are the ends that all philosophizing, whether scholasto-theoretical or cosmo-practical in its emphasis, ultimately pursues. In other words, the Copernican (or architectonic) turn does not consist in turning away from some false ends towards these three pure ideas; rather it consists in the discovery of a new way of thinking that enables the philosopher to realize these ends in a more authentic way.
I shall now argue that Kant regards the philosophical practice of this new way of thinking, which he calls "architectonic", as closely analogous to the work of an architect. The evidence supporting this assertion, which I have amassed in Appendix III of my forthcoming book, Kant's Critical Religion, is too volumous to repeat here in its entirety. Instead, I shall limit my attention to all Kant's uses of this term in his Critique of Pure Reason other than those occurring in the Architectonic chapter itself.
Kant's first use of the term "architectonic", near the end of the first Critique's Introduction [CRP 27], emaphasizes one of the most important features of his mode of philosophical practice: to philosophize architectonically, he says, is to let one's thinking be determined by a "plan" based on "principles" that guarantee "the completeness and certainty of the structure in all its parts." If Kant's use here of terms such as "plan", "structure", and "parts" does not already seem like an obvious indication of his intent to allude to the art of architecture, then his comments on the nature of architecture in the third Critique should remove all doubt. For he there states that 'design is what is essential' for the architect's art [Kt7:225]. Later, he defines architecture as 'the art of exhibiting concepts of things that are possible only through art, things whose form does not have nature as its determining basis but instead has a chosen purpose' [322], adding that the 'adaptation of the product to a particular use is the essential element in a work of architecture' [322, tr. Hastie].
As philosophers we are likewise to regard ourselves as architects of reason: the Copernican revolution requires us to assume that we are, quite literally, designing the plan of the boat as we float in it. The aim of this procedure, Kant emphasizes, is certainty and completeness. And he goes on to explain in this passage that the plan's com pleteness is to be derived from the Critique's 'enumeration of all the fundamental concepts that go to constitute ... pure knowledge' [27]-i.e., from the table of 'the logical function of the understanding in judgments' [95, e.a.], better known as the table of categories. About no other part of his philosophy does Kant emphasize its completeness so adamantly; so it is not without significance that Kant uses 'complete' and its cognates no less than 14 times in this section of the Introduction.[1]
For Kant, the key to genuine architectonic, then, is to recognize that logic provides us with certain simple conceptual "forms" through which our understanding orders and designs everything it brings under its purview. This must be clearly distinguished from reliance on logical argumentation, which is the basis of the school-concept of philosophy that Kant rejected. Reliance on logical argumentation is problematic only when it is not first ordered through a conscious self-limitation of reason in accordance with the logical forms of understanding (i.e., the 12 categories).
Only in this way can a genuine system be created. Here Kant contrasts architectonic system-building with the "aggregate" method typically used by previous philosophers. Aristotle, for instance, simply looked around and gathered whatever basic concepts he found at hand and happened to come up with ten categories. The number could have been nine or eleven without changing any essential feature of the theory's form. But for Kant or any Kantian architectonic practitioner, the parts are determined in an entirely opposite way: the philosopher begins with an idea of the whole and from there divides it into its constituent parts according to formal principles of division determined by logical relations. [See KSP III.3-4.]
On its own, this initial reference would not be enough to build an interpretation on; but in conjunction with the next four occurrences of 'architec tonic' and with Kant's many other references to the terms 'plan' and 'structure', these tentative suggestions can be confirmed. The second occurrence appears in the introductory section of the Dialectic, entitled 'The Ideas in General'. The section's main purpose is to distinguish Kant's use of the term 'idea' from Plato's. Near the climax of this discussion we read:
If we set aside the exaggerations in Plato's methods of expression, the philoso pher's spiritual flight from the ectypal mode of reflecting upon the physical world-order to the architectonic ordering of it according to ends, that is, according to ideas, is an enterprise which calls for respect and imitation. [375]
Here 'architectonic' is regarded as a mode of ordering 'according to ends' or 'ideas' and is directly contrasted with 'ectypal'. Earlier in the same paragraph [374] Kant uses the cognate term, 'archetype', to refer to Plato's view that the soul contains divinely predetermined ideas that 'are the original causes of things.' So we now know that 'architectonic' is a teleological method of using ideas to impose order onto the physical world and that Kant has a somewhat qualified sympathy with Plato's employment of it.
The third and fourth occurrences of 'architectonic' appear in the same paragraph, towards the end of Section 3 of 'The Antinomy of Pure Reason'. The relevant portions of the paragraph (omitting the comments relating solely to the antinomies) are as follows:
Human reason is by nature architectionic. That is to say, it regards all our knowl edge as belonging to a possible system, and therefore allows only such principles as do not at any rate make it impossible for any knowledge that we may attain to combine into a system with other knowledge.... Since ... the antithesis thus refuses to admit as first or as a beginning anything that could serve as a foundation for building, a complete edifice of knowledge is, on such assumptions, altogether impossible. Thus the architectonic interest of reason-the demand not for empirical but for pure a priori unity of reason-forms a natural recommendation for the assertions of the thesis. [Kt1:502-3]
Here we find a number of new claims about 'architectonic', as well as some reaffirmations of hints mentioned earlier. First, architectonic is not merely a fabrication of some philosopher's imagination; it is part of the very nature of reason itself. Second, to say something is architectonic is to say it is systemati cal ly unified or unifiable. Third, once again we see Kant using language that suggests he has in mind an architectural metaphor: reason's architectonic system is compared to a 'building' that has a 'foundation' and stands as a 'complete edifice'. Finally, and most significantly, 'architectonic' provides an a priori unity, not a unity that has been derived from empirical sources. Since Kant regards analytic a priori as the status of formal logic and synthetic a priori as the status of transcendental logic, we can now conclude with virtual certainty that Kant thinks architectonic performs its unifying function (one way or the other) by means of logic.
In its fifth occurrence [Kt1:736] 'architectonic' merely appears in a list of the four main divisions of the Doctrine of Method. Nevertheless, the context is informative. The sentence immediately preceding the list states that the Doctrine of Method concerns 'the determination of the formal conditions of a complete system of pure reason' [735-6]. It examines the form of Kant's system, whereas the Doctrine of Elements provides the material or content. This tells us that 'architectonic' relates in some way to a philosophical system's formal structure, rather than to the details of its arguments or theories. The sentence immediately following the list notes that the traditional term for the four topics in question is 'practical logic' [736]. The remainder of the paragraph appears to call into question the appropriateness of the term 'practical', not the term 'logic'. Kant's criticism of the term boils down to the fact that the 'Schools' approach neglects the all-important considerations of transcendental logic.
If we had more time, we would now proceed to examine Kant's use of the term "architectonic" in the Chapter near the end of the first Critique devoted to the discussion of Architectonic as an aspect of philosophical method, and from there, we would proceed to examine its use in his other writings. Without going into these details, let me simply report, having myself carried out such an extensive study, that I have found no evidence that contradicts the impression these texts give that the term "architectonic" is, in part, an architectural metaphor. Instead, I have found a great deal of evidence that corroborates such an interpretation: for instance, Kant's refererence to "architectonic" as an "art" [CPR 860] virtually identifies it with the process of discovering 'an idea of the whole' [Kt10:93(98)] and an orderly division of its parts, and much more-all of which can be applied to the architect's tasks just as readily as to those of the Copernican philosopher.
Paula's claim to the contrary seems to be based on an erroneous assumption that everything Kant discusses in the Architectonic chapter is part of his definition of "architectonic". This, however, is very far from the case. On the contrary, over half of the chapter is devoted to examples of architectonic divisions in philosophy, one of which is the schools-vs.-world distinction that Paula has rightly pointed out. That is, Kant introduces this division as an architectonic distinction between two types of philosophy, not as a distinction that is meant to shed any light on the difference between architectonic and non-architectonic methods of philosophizing.
Can Kant's "architect" metaphor provide us with any insight into the task of a philosophical practitioner? The metaphor seems to imply that, just as the architect imposes a conceptual design onto a physical structure so it can be used for a given purpose, so also the archi tectonic philosopher imposes a conceptual design (i.e., what Kant calls 'the idea of the whole' and the ordering of its parts) onto a collection of concepts so it can serve the purposes (or ends) of reason more adequately. Kant employs his conception of philosophy as architectonic to criticize philosophers who adopt a haphazard approach to system-building, arguing instead that the philosopher ought to be the 'lawgiver', imposing logical distinctions onto the otherwise haphazard data presented in our experience.
This distinction between collecting whatever data happens to come our way in hopes of organizing it in some arbitrary way and using a rational idea along with the laws of formal logic to gain advance insight into a given subject can be applied to a counseling session in the following way. Let's imagine that Kathy has come to me because she has been feeling overwhelmed by an array of different commitments life has thrown her way recently, and she isn't sure how she can cope with the pressure. She wants to know whether philosophical reflection can assist her in any way. In such a situation, I can assist by encouraging Kathy to see herself as an 'architect' of life. Using Kant's account of architecture as a guide, I could first ask Kathy to reflect on the purpose or (as Kant elsewhere puts it) the 'essential ends' of her life as she currently sees it (or would like it to be). This in itself may well take an entire session to clarify. Once Kathy has hit upon a purpose worth defending, I can invite her to design for herself a way of life, a structure, that would enable such a purpose to be accomplished more readily. I might even invite her to imagine her life as a building and ask her to walk through that building in her imagination, explaining each room and what function it fulfils.
The remaining step, once Kathy has described a suitable ideal, is to experiment with various ways of altering the realities of her life so that it fits her ideal as closely as possible. This is where the skills of an architectonic philosopher, adept at logical classification and able to penetrate with insight into the depths of apparently contradictory situations, can be of great service to the client.
III. Critical Reflections (with emphasis on Philosophical Practice)
Paula has offered an interesting suggestion in interpreting Kant's passing reference to the 'teacher in the ideal' (CPR 6??) as a key metaphor for defining how Kant's architectonic turn can relate to philosophical practice. There are, of course, many possible ways of interpreting this rather ambiguous expression of Kant's, so I do not wish to deny at this point that such a position can be made credable. Nevertheless, I do wish to point out several possible misunderstandings that could arise from such a suggestion, if the context of Kant's use of this phrase is not taken fully into consideration.
First, we must keep in mind that Kant uses this phrase in the course of explaining an example of an architectonic division between two types of philosophy: academic (i.e., "scholastic"--based on the "school-concept") versus practical (i.e., cosmopolitan--based on the "world-concept"). In using this phrase, Kant is certainly not claiming that teaching is the only genuine mode of philosophical practice. Far from it! Such a claim would be more likely defended by a scholastic philosopher. Kant's phrase, by contrast, refers not to ordinary teaching, but to a type of teaching that is somehow "in the ideal".
To understand this phrase we must first recall Kant's technical use of the term "ideal" earlier in the first Critique to refer to the concept of God, hypostatised in the form of a real being who lives in the world. Once we take this fact into consideration, it seems likely that Kant is referring not to ordinary human teaching, but to an idealized kind of divine teaching. For Kant, as he explains towards the end of the Dialectic, the idea of God can have an appropriate funciton in philosophy only if it is taken as regulative rather than constitutive. Applied to the present case, this would require us to interpret "the teacher in the ideal" as a concept or attitude that guides our thinking, rather than a profession that can be set up alongside other human professions. In its regulative sense, this teacher would therefore best be identified with the internal voice that teaches each person the moral law
If Kant's phrase is meant to have a constitutive sense--a sense that relates to the external world, not just to our concepts or attitudes about it--then we should probably interpret it as an indirect reference to Jesus Christ. Since "the ideal" is clearly a reference to God, the teacher who claimed to be both "in" and "of" this ideal, and to represent it in human form, would surely be a reference to Jesus. This suggestion (made initially by Paula during the preliminary discussions we had before preparing this presentation) accords well with Kant's habit of never mentioning Jesus by name, but always substituting some description instead. If this is indeed what Kant had in mind, then what might this imply about the kind of teaching Kant has in mind here?
Jesus' mode of "philosophical practice"--if I can be so daring as to call it such--was multifaceted, one of it's chief characteristics being his desire to nurture insight in his followers by walking alongside them as a friend. With this in mind, I believe Kant's phrase ("teacher in the ideal") could imply friendship as much as teaching as a good model for philosophical practice. In any case, Kant did elsewhere claim that cultivating friendship is one of the duties to others that reason imposes on us (MM ??). It is interesting to note, therefore, that Kant practiced what he preached.
We are all familiar with the textbook accounts of Kant's life that make him out to be a pedantic old professor who never changed his ways. But the fact is that he disciplined himself to share the only meal he ate each day, a mid-afternoon lunch, with six guests. This habit may have been more than just an accident of his sociable disposition. During these gatherings, all manner of practical issues would be discussed. He made it a matter of principle on such occasions not to use the time to promote or defend (i.e., to teach) his own new philosophical system--even though some of his guests may well have been happy to hear him pontificate in this way. Rather, Kant would plan and guide the conversations to center around more cosmopolitan themes, such as politics, geography, social issues, etc. Despite his reputation of having a rather cold and rigid temperament, Kant actually held friendship in the highest regard.
By the end of the two hours of physical and social nourishment, these acquaintances had often become Kant's friends, and I believe in many cases they went away changed individuals, thanks to the power of a philosophical conversation with a friend. Had they been required to pay for this service-as is generally the case both in classrooms and counseling sessions-they may well have still learned something from spending time together with a great philosopher; but their souls would not have been strengthened to cope with life in quite the same way. This is architectonic in at least two senses: (1) Kant planned the meals in this way (he did not simply leave the conversation up to the spur of the moment, as many of us would do in such situations); and (2) the meals were self-limited both with respect to time and number of guests (Kant did not throw big parties, inviting any and every acquaintance, nor did he allow the conversation to last until everyone had tired of it and were ready to leave, both of which would be a typical "aggregate" approach to friendship).
I admit that this practical example is not much to go by in an attempt to associate Kant's architectonic turn with the model of friendship. This is partly because I continue to believe that Kant's own preferred model was that of an architect. But before concluding with a story from my own experience that corroborates with this conviction, let me draw attention to the fact that Kant's Critical method is itself essentially one that aims to reconcile opposites. Whether it be the distinctions between dogmatism and skepticism, rationalism and empiricism, mind and body, spirit and matter-you name it-Kant consistently applied his architectonic turn to the goal of finding a "third perspective" through which the original opposition could be transcended, so that the truth and falsity of both opposing items could be recognized. (This fact might help us to understand how Kant managed to count among his friends and lunch guests many people whose philosophical positions were significantly different from his own.) I suggest that a philosophical practitioner-particularly one inclined to use philosophy to promote friendship, as Kant did-can adopt this as his or her goal as well: to seek in every personal relationship to establish a common perspective through which one's differences can be put into a context that does not block the potential for true communication and friendship.
Let me now conclude by telling a little story that I hope will illustrate why I think the models of architect and friend are not entirely unrelated. Earlier this year I had the good fortune to be able to acquire a 10-acre parcel of forestland in Northern California. My hope is to be able someday to construct a small-scale retreat facility, so that this property can be used as a center where people of many backgrounds and beliefs can gather for self-reflection, philosophical conversation, and companionship. My reason for mentioning this is not (or at least, not only) to break the news of this possible future development, but (also) to relate an interesting experience I had during the early planning stages.
My wife is an artist, as those of you who have met her at the Philopsychy Society table in the Exhibition Hall earlier this week may have noticed. She recently drew up a set of plans for a structure we hope to have built on this property in the near future. In May I took these plans to an architect in order to have them drawn up professionally. Although I had never met him before my initial inquiry, this man offered to visit the property and survey the situation. Together we staked out the boundaries of two planned structures, with the architect operating the surveyor's equipment and me holding up a measuring tape so he could measure distances. Later, he invited me to his office on several occasions, where I stood by his side as he wielded his mouse and, with lightening speed, changed various aspects of the plans in line with my suggestions. The height of the roof, the number of steps on the staircase, the position of the doors, and many other details were revised to fit more appropriately into the idea of the whole.
My reason for relating this experience to you is that, whereas my relationship with this architect could have remained on a purely business level, he treated me instead as his friend. This, too, could be a model for the philosophical practittioner. Having pointed out the possibility of overlap, I want to end by noting a fundamental difference: I believe there is no such thing as a professional friend. To receive money for befriending a person is to invalidate the use of the term "friend" as a primary description of the relationship. In my book, Dreams of Wholeness, I have argued in detail that psychotherapy is for this reason a symptom of the sickness of our society, rather than a road to its cure. This would imply that, if the philosophical practice movement becomes just another mode of professional, high-cost therapy, then our golden opportunity to use philosophy as a means of restoring genuine wholeness to our society will have been lost. However, the view I have defended here, that the philosopher can be, at the same time, like both an architect and a friend, might actually contradict my previously-defended position. For just a few days ago, while attending this conference, I received an email message from my architect, letting me know the bill for his services. (And it was no small amount!) I shall therefore leave this point for the discussion, if anyone wishes to pursue it.
IV. The Dialogue: Complementary or Contradictory?
Paula and Steve: Spontaneous concluding questions and answers.
We're going to conclude our presentation with a brief time of spontaneous (unplanned) dialogue between Paula and myself on the various issues we have raised. After a few minutes of this one-on-one dialogue, we will invite questions and further dialogoue from the floor. During this concluding part of the session, let us all keep in mind the words President Clinton quoted from Benjamin Franklin during his lecture at Beijing University this past June (29/6/98): "Our critics are our friends, for they show us our faults."
(Paula used about 2650 words for parts 1&2) I used a bit less than 2641
I've used 369+1944=2313 so far; 333 left for the rest of part I.
4971-about 50= about 4925 words in all my 4 sections
What are the "essential ends" of human reason, anywya? My answer would be "unity". With that in mind, consider Paul Tillich's definition of love as "the drive toward the unity of the separated".
Another answer would be the "ideas" of God, freedom, and immortality. (how to use in PC?)
The categories as a logical means to the end of unity. (Note my 3ICPP paper on how to use these for PC)
I. Introduction to the Dialogue
Paula's brief account of what gave rise to her interest in this dialogue.
Steve's version of the story.
II. Two Conceptions of Kant's Architectonic
Steve's summary of his understanding of Kant's conception, as in KSP1.
Paula's summary of her understanding of Kant's conception, as in ACP.
III. Critical Reflections (with emphasis on Philosophical Practice)
Paula's critique of Steve's conception.
Steve's response to Paula's critique and critique of Paula's conception.
IV. The Dialogue
Paula's response as the lead-in to a spontaneous dialogue on the issues.
Steve's brief concluding statement on the value of friendship for philosophers in general and for Kant in particular.
I.
When you first contacted me I was delighted to find that someone else out there is willing to question and reject the conventional view that Kant's infamous love of architectonic is to blame for many of the supposed inconsistencies or irrelevancies in his writings. I eagerly awaited the arrival of your dissertation, though I was at the same time well aware of the possibility that your research, done several years prior to my own, might in some way undermine or challenge my own interpretation of Kant's architectonic. My reading of your work confirmed both of these sentiments: that we share a common interest worth exploring further, and that your interpretation is different from mine in some significant ways that could require some revision and/or additional research or rethinking on my part. So with this in mind, let's look at our two positions more closely, shall we?
II.
My interpretation of Kant began as a sustained attempt to see how consistently I could portray his writings by adopting his own presuppositions as my own. Perhaps the most fundamental and well known of all assumptions in Kant's mature philosophy is known as his "Copernican revolution", generally taken to refer to his view that the formal or universal aspects of our knowledge is rooted in the human subject, not in objects conisdered as 'things in themselves'. But a lesser known, and where known, almost universally repudiated, assumption of Kant's is that such pure rational knowledge is and must be regarded as 'architectonic'. Without carrying out a very careful textual analysis of Kant's use of these terms, I treated this term in the way that seemed evident from my reading both of Kant and of secondary sources, as a reference to Kant's tendency to organize his thoughts into predetermined sets of concepts, topics, or arguments, nearly always consisting of division of three and/or four. The 3x4=12 pattern of the categories is obviously the most significant example of how Kant applied his architectonic, on this interpretation.
My hypothesis in Kant's System of Perpspectives was that the inconsistencies and inchorence that most commentators find lurking around every corner in Kant's writings are actually a direct result of the fact that these commenators begin by rejecting the value of Kant's cherished architectonic. Kant regards architectonic as the source of all systematic unity; so it is only to be expected that an attempt to read Kant without paying attention to the logical form, or outline, he follows in constructing his arguments, books, and System as a whole, is bound to come up with something hardly resembling what Kant himself had in mind. I therefore went to the opposite extreme: I laid out a detailed, explicit theory of the exact form and content of the architectonic of Kant's System and based my interpretation on this every step of the way.
Rather than going into any details of the System at this point, I shall simply add that I took it for granted that the term 'architectonic' is essentially a metaphor, whereby the philosopher is being compared with an architect. In his third Critique Kant points out that in "architecture ... design iswhat is essential" (225) and that the architect's design is an attempt to adapt "the product to a particular use" (322). In many of the passages where he uses the term, Kant speaks in obviously metaphorical ways about the philosopher "constructing" a "building" or "buildings", based on the design or plan provided by "the idea of the whole". To me this connotation for the word seemed so obvious that no detailed investigation of the matter seemed necessary.
With these preliminary reflections in mind, let us turn now to our main source of information about Kant's meaning, the Chapter on 'The Architectonic of Pure Reason' [Kt1:860-79]. We have already seen that Kant regards each chapter in the Doctrine of Method as examining an aspect of the form of the same system whose content is examined in the Doctrine of Elements and that the key feature of that content is the discovery of the four logical functions of the understanding in any act of judgment, functions that give rise to the categories and eventually, when synthesized with intuitions, to the principles of pure understanding. The fact that Kant chooses to discuss exactly four topics in the Doctrine of Method suggests that here, as in most of his fourfold divisions, he is consciously attempting to follow the pattern set by the four basic logical functions. If so, the Discipline, Canon, Architectonic, and History of Pure Reason could be regarded as expressing respectively the quantitative, qualita tive, relational, and modal aspects of transcendental philosophy's form. At this point, of course, this is purely conjectural; but we should keep in mind the possibility that Chapter III corresponds somehow to the category of relation.
After the title of Chapter III, the remaining eight occurrences of 'architec tonic(ally)' all appear in four paragraphs. The chapter's opening paragraph contains the second and third occurrences:
By an architectonic I understand the art of constructing systems. As systematic unity is what first raises ordinary knowledge to the rank of science, that is, makes a system out of a mere aggregate of knowledge, architectonic is the doctrine of the scientific in our knowledge ... [Kt1:860].
In the first sentence we see Kant again connecting architectonic metaphorical ly with a term suggesting architecture, 'constructing'. Whereas an architect's job is to design, or 'construct the plan', for a building, the task of architectonic is to construct systems by imposing order onto the 'mere aggregate' (i.e., the unorganized data) that other wise characterises our empirical knoweldge. The newest and most intriguing aspect suggested by this passage is that Kant calls architectonic an 'art', even though it is at the same time, somewhat paradoxical ly, the formal factor that makes a body of knowledge scientific.
The second paragraph explains what 'constructing systems' means in its architectonic sense (i.e., as one of the four formal aspects of transcendental philosophy). It means that reason prescribes laws that unify 'the manifold modes of knowledge under one idea' [Kt1:860]. This idea, he tells us, is 'the concept ... of the form of a whole' that determines both 'the scope of [reason's] manifold content' and 'the positions which the parts occupy rela tively to one another.' This nicely supports our foregoing speculation: the task of architectonic should be to determine the relation between the otherwise unre lated parts of a transcendental system's form. (Two sentences later Kant again emphasizes this relational aspect. Apparently, he had an architectonic reason for placing this chapter third!) In the Doctrine of Elements, we learned that this function is fulfilled by the categories, applied in the schematized form of prin ciples of pure understanding. So Kant appears to be alluding here to a neces sary connection between the formal structure of the categories and that of all architectonic reasoning.
If this interpretation is accurate, then why didn't Kant simply come out and state that architectonic uses the table of categories (or its predecessor) to impose systematic patterns onto our thought processes? The reason, I believe, is bound up with Kant's strategy in dividing the Critiques into Doctrines of Elements and Method. Each time he does this, the two sections are meant to be independent of each other, in the sense that they work towards the same goal, but from opposite perspectives: content first, then form. None of the chapters in the Doctrine of Method appeal directly to the results of the Doctrine of Elements; rather, they each reveal in different ways reason's need for just the sort of thing the foregoing Doctrine of Elements has provided. To connect architectonic too explicitly in Chapter III with the 4x3=12 pattern determined by the categories would have been to beg the question he was attempting to answer. To name the categories or even their numerical structure would be to focus on the content of architectonic; but as we have seen, Kant's focus here is on its form.
The second paragraph of Chapter III also states that the purpose of imposing on the aggregate of our knowledge an idea that clearly relates the parts to each other within a whole is to 'further the essential ends of reason' [Kt1:860]. Kant unfortunately does not explain what he means by this phrase. However, the remainder of the paragraph suggests he is thinking here of reason's ultimate goal, the unification of all knowledge; for he claims this prescriptive function of reason (i.e., reason's architectonic nature) 'makes it possible for us to determine from our knowledge of the other parts whether any part be missing, and to prevent any arbitrary addition', thus guaranteeing the completeness of the system being constructed [860-1]. Kant shows us no method of achieving such lofty aims in the Doctrine of Elements other than by patterning our systematic divisions on the formal structure established by the tables of categories and logical functions. To illustrate this point, he concludes the paragraph by comparing a rational system's potential to 'grow from within ..., but not by external addition' to that of 'an animal body' [861]. This metaphor is easily understood as referring to Kant's conviction that, when constructing a categorial table in reference to any set of conceptual realtions, we must resist any temptation to add a single new member (e.g., 4+1=5), for this destroys the unity of the conceptual relations under considera tion. Instead, we must account for any new members by making further internal divisions, just as Kant does when he divides each category into three 'moments' (4x3=12).
The third paragraph contains the next two references to 'architectonic'. It begins by distinguishing between two ways in which a schema and an idea can be related. When viewed from the empirical perspective, the schema presents the manifold of knowledge to us independently of any unifying idea, whereas from reason's a priori perspective, the schema 'originates from an idea' without 'wait[ing] for [its ends] to be empirically given' [Kt1:861]. The latter alone, Kant states, 'serves as the basis of architectonic unity.' One of the main differences between these two forms of relation is that when the schema is viewed 'empirically', 'the number [of its ends] cannot be foreseen'. But science requires certainty in its distinctions and so must impose them a priori, 'in architectonic fashion, in view of the affinity of its parts and of their derivation from a single supreme and inner end' [862]. This is the best evidence yet that the a priori unity imposed on the aggregate by reason's architectonic art has to do with the 4x3=12 pattern of the categories. For Kant's point is precisely that reason's architectonic form (as revealed in the categories) enables us to do what is impossible using a merely empirical method: to determine the appropriate number that composes any given set of concepts. Reason's ability to discern the pattern in advance is the source of the 'affinity of [the manifold's] parts' in an architectonic system.
The fourth paragraph warns the reader that, although the founder of every new science bases it on a single idea, the initial atttempts to schematize that idea are 'very seldom adequate', because 'this idea lies hidden in reason' [Kt1:862]. As a result, Kant encourages us to be willing to go beyond the descriptions given by the founders of any new science, whom we often find 'are groping for an idea which they have never succeeded in making clear to themselves'; our focus should instead be on the idea and its grounding in reason. With this in mind, I believe my articulation of the logical structure of the architectonic form of Kant's System, as given in Chapter III of KSP1, would meet with Kant's approval. If Kant is to avoid being hypocritical, he would have to confess that he, too, like the founder of any new science, had only a vague grasp of the 'idea of the whole' that brought unity and completeness to his System of transcendental philosophy. My conscious goal in KSP1 was to apply this advice of Kant's to the task of interpreting the architectonic structure of his own System.
The next three occurrences of 'architectonic(ally)', coming in the fifth paragraph of Chapter III, do not tell us anything fundamentally new about Kant's understanding of the term. The paragraph begins by lamenting that systems are typically constructed initially as aggregates [862-3], and that only after 'a long period ... does it first become possible for us to discern the idea in a clearer light, and to devise a whole architectonically in accordance with the ends of reason.' (The fact that Kant made substantially the same point in Kt1:105-7, with respect to Aristotle's collection of categories, provides yet further evidence for my claim that the table of categories provides the most important clue to the formal structure of Kant's architectonic.) After likening the development of systems to that of 'lowly organisms' [863], he claims that so much 'human knowledge' has now been gathered that 'an architectonic of all human knowledge ... would not indeed be difficult.' He then announces that the remainder of the chapter will merely 'outline the architectonic of all knowledge arising from pure reason'.
From this point much of Chapter III consists of a series of twofold divisions of reason and/or philosophy, intended to provide the reader with a bird's eye view of the architectonic form of transcendental philosophy. For our purposes here we can skip over the details of Kant's exposition, not only because the various divisions appear at times to be somewhat incompatible with each other, but also because they are advanced as examples of architectonic divisions, not as further explications of the meaning of the term as such.[2] Instead of recounting the details of each division, we can pass on to Kant's final use of 'architectonic' in Kt1. Six paragraphs before the end of Chapter III, immediately after summarizing 'the whole system of metaphysics' in terms of 'four main parts' [Kt1:874], Kant reaffirms several aspects of the foregoing understanding we have gained of 'architectonic':
The originative idea of a philosophy of pure reason itself prescribes this division, which is therefore architectonic, in accordance with the essential ends of reason ... Accordingly the division is also unchangeable and of legislative authority.
Once again we see that this term entails that reason has prescribed a division (i.e., 4=2÷2) 'in accordance with the essential ends of reason'; because it conforms to those ends (i.e., the categories as applied in the principles), the division can be regarded as authoritative and 'unchangeable'.
We could now proceed to verfify and deepen the foregoing analysis of the meaning of 'architectonic' in Kant's writings in two ways. First, we could examine his usage elsewhere in Kt1 of other terms that we now know are closely related to his conception of architectonic. In particular, a thorough study of words such as 'plan', 'science', 'unity', and 'complete(ness)'-especially when they appear in close proximity-would provide added insight into the details of Kant's conception of architectonic. For instance, we would find that some of the key terms used in Chapter III of the Doctrine of Method are also used in the second edition Preface, where Kant first introduces the analogy between his philosophical approach and the Copernican revolution. Perhaps most significant, however, is that, shortly after introducing the table of categories in Kt1, Kant says: 'this table is extremely useful in the theoretical part of philosophy, and indeed is indispensable as supplying the complete plan of a whole science, so far as that science rests on a priori concepts, and as dividing it systematicallyaccording to determinate principles' [109]. When the language of the Architectonic chapter of the Doctrine of Method is kept in mind, such statements can hardly be interpreted as anything other than a direct affirmation that the table of categories is the key to the formal structure of reason's architectonic unity.
The task of examining all instances of Kant's use of such language would quickly get out of hand, of course, and is not strictly necessary here in order for me to fulfil my goal of setting out a thorough analysis of Kant's conception of architectonic. A more manageable way to conclude the discussion will be to examine how Kant uses 'architectonic' in texts other than Kt1. Without attempting to exhaust all occurrences in Kant's corpus, let us look briefly at the other occurrences in Kant's main systematic works. Kant does not use the term 'architectonic' in Kt2, Kt3, Kt5, Kt6, Kt8, or Kt9. But he does use it once in the Preface to Kt4, four times in Kt7, and twice in Kt10. Let us therefore examine these passages in order.
In Kt4:10 Kant reminds us that the Critical task 'of determining the origin, contents, and limits of a particular faculty' must by its very nature 'begin with an exact and ... complete delineation of its parts.' But in order for such a task to succeed, something more than just a collection of parts is needed, something 'which is of a more philosophical and architectonic character'-namely, 'to grasp correctly the idea of the whole, and then to see all those parts in their reciprocal interrelations, in the light of their derivation from the concept of the whole, and as united in a pure rational faculty.' So here again we see that Kant's architectonic has to do with the relation between the parts as they are united together in a complete system under a single organizing idea of reason.
Although Kant does not use the term 'architectonic' in the first half of Kt7, he does provide some reflections on architecture (Baukunst) that are at least indirectly relevant to his metaphorical use of the former term. He points out that in architecture, as in all fine arts, 'design is what is essential' [225]. Later, he defines architecture as 'the art of exhibiting concepts of things that are possible only through art, things whose form does not have nature as its determining basis but instead has a chosen purpose' [322], adding that the 'adaptation of the product to a particular use is the essential element in a work of architecture' [322, tr. Hastie]. With these comments in mind, it seems highly unlikely that Kant would have dared refer to architectonic as an 'art' [Kt1:860] if he were actually attempting to combat the tendency to draw analogies between it and architecture. As it stands, his reference now seems to imply that, just as the architect imposes a conceptual design onto a physical structure so it can be used for a given purpose, so also the archi tectonic philosopher imposes a conceptual design (the idea of the whole and the ordering of its parts) onto a conceptual structure so it can serve the purposes (ends) of reason more adequately.
The second half of Kt7 mentions architectonic twice in the main text and twice in the Appendix. By highlighting the relevant terms in the first passage, we can see that it provides clear evidence that Kant has an architectural analogy in mind when he uses the term 'architectonic':
Every science is a system in its own right. It is not enough that in building [something] in the science we follow principles and so proceed technically; we must also set to work with the science architectonically, treating it as a whole and independent building, not as an annex or part of another building, though we may later construct, starting from either building, a passage connecting the one to the other. [381, t.b., e.a.]
Here Kant is alluding to Kt7's role in the architectonic of his System as the 'passage' that connects systemt and systemp. A few pages later he mentions in passing that our ability to determine 'actual natural purposes' is based not on the mechanical principles of nature, but 'on a wholly different kind of original causality, namely, an architectonic understanding' [388-9]. The first Appendix passage merely affirms this identification of 'an architectonic understanding' with our ability 'to assume a teleological principle for judging ... natural purposes' [420]. Whereas these passages all emphasise the scientific aspect of architectonic, the second Appendix passage emphasises its artistic aspect. Kant explains that a teleological coneption of nature requires us 'to subordinate the mechanism of nature to the architectonic of an intelligent author of the world', that is, to God, regarded as the 'supreme artist' [438].
Finally, the term 'architectonic' appears twice in Kt10. Near the end of a section of the Introduction entitled 'Specific Logical Perfections of Cognition', Kant describes 'the architectonic of sciences' [48-9(54)] as 'a system according to ideas inwhich the sciences are considered in respect of their relationship and systematic connection in a whole of cognition that is of interest to mankind.' The second passage further explains that a science's 'idea' is 'the general delineation or outline of it, thus the extension of all cognitions belonging to it' and that '[s]uch an idea of the whole ... is architectonic' [93(98)]. Here again we see architectonic being depicted as the unifying aspect of science, whereby an idea is used to establish a systematic relationship between the parts of a whole in order to fulfil the interest (i.e., ends) of humanity.
Although I freely admit that I wrote KSP1 without having first carried out a thoroughgoing word-study of 'architectonic' in Kant, the foregoing correc tion of that oversight has not resulted in any substantial change in the position I previous ly attributed to Kant. On the contrary, this section has confirmed my interpreta tion of Kant's architectonic as a method of using logical divisions such as those embodied in the table of categories to organize otherwise haphazard collections of concept in order to provide an 'idea of the whole' that will guarantee both completeness and systematic unity in any science. The new insights provided by this more in-depth study-e.g., that the function of architectonic in the Doctrine of Method corresponds to the category of relation, and that architectonic divisions must serve the 'essential ends' of reason (i.e., reason's drive towards unity in all of its manifestations)-constitute refine ments rather than alterations of my previous position.
arsitektonik (architectonic): struktur logis yang diberikan oleh akal (terutama melalui pemanfaatan pembagian berlipat-dua dan berlipat tiga), yang harus digunakan oleh filsuf sebagai rencana untuk mengorganisasikan isi sistem apa pun.
Architectonic
Our pediatrician moved to an office in a fancy new building. The first time we took the kids for a checkup I was faced with the choice of trying to carry an infant car seat through a set of revolving doors or somehow managing to press, with full hands, the button to open the (rather narrow) powered swinging door to the right of them. You can see the doors in the picture above. I managed to use my elbow to press the button to open the swinging door, but I couldn't help wondering what the building designers were thinking in making it physically challenging to get into a medical center.
Turns out there was a nice wide automatic sliding door that I could have used. It's there to the left of the revolving door. You can tell because there's a tiny little lock on the frame next to it, and a minuscule sticker (behind the tinted glass, visually blended with the metal frame) that says "AUTOMATIC DOOR". There's also a small black sensor over the door, but the way things are arranged you have to tilt your head back to see it so I've left it out of the picture.
When I noticed the sliding door on our second visit, I felt a little silly. After all, if I would have been paying full attention I could, in fact, have worked out that there was a door there. Then I got annoyed. I knew how stupid it was to design invisible doors because I'd read Donald Norman's Design of Everyday Things way back when, and I expected building designers to have at least the level of knowledge about doors that I have.
It's not just doors, though. Any time you have a cover-your-behind feature in an application you're going to instill in your users that same feeling of guilt that the building architects caused me to feel. Those transient status messages, those tiny-fonted explanatory paragraphs embedded below text fields, that explanation buried in the online help, all of them make the person writing the application (or designing the door) feel better, but do little to prevent the user from making mistakes. The subject has been beaten to death over the past few years and I don't really have anything new to say except that it might be useful, the next time you encounter a situation like the above, to stop and briefly savor the feeling of minor humiliation. Drink it in. It adds a pleasant piquant note to those dry usability articles, and the memory might give you that little bit of extra motivation to spend ten more minutes coming up with a good design rather than giving in to the urge to just CYA and move on
Sumber : _ www. Knowledgerush.com
_www. Czexpo.com
_www. Brown.com
_www. Istor.org
_architectonic_views.html
_www.roterddam-archiguides.
_www.urbantyphoon.com
_www.hkbu.edu.hk/
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