Frances wants to explore a theory of architecture but the parameters she sets are too rigid, and open to dispute. For example, the mind-body split is obsolete in the most current philosophical and scientific investigations. Also, to say something is like a bridge between the objective and the subjective is to say nothing beyond a tautology, since we can't fully examine either state by itself. Every thought and experience is both objective and subjective. All being, consciousness, is the bridge. Finally, we can't say we want to define the necessary and sufficient properties of architecture by using terms that are themselves beyond definition, like art, or by assuming those properties to be global, and therefore static, while admitting that they are not static, but variable in both subjective and objective ways.
It makes far better sense to try to define the properties of a specific type, function, or style, device, or materials, of architecture. For example, why is the use of the pendentive considered an innovative trait of byzantine architecture when it was used by the ancient Romans, too? Or, is there an American style of architecture? WC ________________________________ From: Frances Kelly <[email protected]> To: [email protected] Sent: Saturday, May 9, 2009 12:43:42 PM Subject: RE: Architecture and Philosophy Frances to Armando... You claim that the preexistent aesthetic qualities of stuff, be it purity or beauty or unity or whatever, is actually a subjective determination made by way of a cognitive mental judgement. It is assumed however that such a capable mind is normal and healthy and mature, because even mad lunatics can make judgements about aesthetic qualities that are clearly evil or bad or at least wrong. The individual or even the communal mind therefore is not a reliable identifier or indicator or determiner of what might be the aesthetic quality born by an object. It is agreed that a perfect beautiful objective world without any sentient beings to subjectively sense it would be pointless, but to insist on psychologistic subjectivism as the sole means of determining or realizing aesthetic qualities seems limited. My approach would be to blend the objective and the subjective poles together with a relative bridge, thereby narrowing if not closing the drifting shifting gap. There must clearly be a relation between the object and the subject, but is after all the object that is held to bear aesthetic qualities, and not the subjective mind, therefore some kind of "objective relativism" would seem to be the best theory here for now. Furthermore, the mental mind is of the cerebral brain in the physical body of the corporeal being, and is hence nothing more than mere matter, but even matter therefore is effete or weak mind in that it grows and reacts and adapts by way of quasi thought, from the particles of atoms to the galaxies of universes. In other words, the subjective is objective, and the enabled determination of any aesthetic qualities would apply to both equally. Furthermore, the bearing of any aesthetic qualities found as formal properties in all ordinary objects of sense would not be sufficient for the object to become artistic or for it to even be judged as being artistic; therefore something else other than external aesthetic qualities alone or internal human judgements alone is needed for stuff to be found or held or deemed as art. You partly wrote... The unavoidable aesthetic quality in anything will always remain a subjective quality no matter the judgement of so-called experts.
