Frances to William with thanks... (1) It is agreed that any theory of architecture will be fallible, because even true knowledge evolves, and if it is good then any true theory will also likely be prone to falsification, in order to be validated and verified. It would be my position therefore that any sound theory should be approached with a degree of skeptical doubt first, and then accepted only with critical judgement, and last acknowledged only with cynical belief. It seems ironic however that the formal qualities of nice art are less fallible and more stable then the theoretical laws of true science. This may be why it is proving to be so difficult to make a good theory of architecture, because it seems to be a vast blend of aesthetics and ethics and logics. (2) In regard to your note on natural laws, as well as perhaps also on mathematical laws and logical laws, it is my position that they are indeed global or general and universal, but because they are accidentally discovered and thus objective, rather than arbitrarily invented and thus subjective; and therefore such laws would not be prone to instrumental falsification or verification. What would be prone to subjective correction however is the degraded and degenerative version of these pure objective laws that the human mind attempts to subjectively apply. This approach to the objectivity of some laws may of course not be agreeable to you. Another thorn here for me is whether the laws of science are also pure and objective, with only their degraded human use being prone to fallibility and correction. (3) My use of the term "love" is in the pragmatist context of "evolutionary love" as the ideal origin of all aspects of love; so that an object gives of itself freely to any other, for the mere sake of giving, with no other motive, and expecting nothing in return for it. This idea seems to fit aesthetic and artistic issues well enough, but perhaps not architecture, which has become a frustrating mix of so much. Your further notion of human love always being defined as the result of power is intriguing, but not fully clear to me, unless by power you mean its force.
William wrote... I think you overstate the case pessimistically. You can develop a theory and implement it. It may be logical and functional and creates the reality it defines. But unlike natural laws it will not be universal because it always relies on subjective experience whereas an objective instrument can verify or falsify a natural law. As for peace and love these are always defined by power. The Pax Romana was not a result of everybody suddenly getting along but was due to imperial power and the threat of suppression. Frances wrote... The classification of those global objects called the arts and techs and sciences by some kind of categories is seemingly an ongoing and unending work in progress for thinkers. There remains little consensus of opinion on a lot of stuff that has been posited. The same can be said of aesthetics and of architecture, and from positions that hold them as either art or tech or science. It is unclear to me however whether this says something mainly about the problems of classes or categories or objects or thinkers or theories. Considering all the learned persons that exist in scholarly academia, it should be expected that some reasonable agreement would emerge, even if only tentative. To me this current state of affairs in regard to a lack of rational intelligent ability is confusing, to say the least. If philosophers, let alone artists and technicians and scientists, cannot deal adequately with psychical things like art and theory, then it is not surprising that they cannot deal with physical and practical things like peace and love. This casual observation of mine may overstate the issue with too much gloom and doom, but it does seem that philosophy, given its legitimate interests is art and tech and science, is in some trouble.
