Frances to Luis rising from the past...
It would seem that the art and act of architecture is indeed
anthropomorphic and anthropocentric. The architectonic evolution
of finding or making shelters to hide in or live in on the part
of humans for purposes of survival would seem to suggest an
animal beginning for what is now called architecture. The
historic growth in habitats that tends to link animals with
humans is however seemingly superfluous, because humans can make
habitats for reasons other than survival, and in fact can make
them for no reason at all. The issues of anthropocentricity are
therefore now just becoming less hazy for me, and might deserve
some further address. The objects of aesthetics and artistics and
architectonics are clearly of humans alone, which is to say are
anthropological and epistemological and sociological, but their
origins and causes and sources are clearly of animals, or are
biological and zoological and ethological. This link however does
not make architecture animalistic, let alone aesthetic or
artistic. Such acts as the grooming and playing and nesting of
animals are agreeably the shared roots of human aesthetics and
artistics and architectonics. The key difference however is that
humans can engage in these acts for their own sake solely alone
and for no other purpose, if they so decide. It is simply that
humans may do it for the pure fun or joy or awe of it, while
animals must do it instinctively for the sake of some other
purpose. There are also clear limits imposed upon animals by
nature that humans are not prone to. Animals for example can only
use signs as signals but cannot use signs as symbols or
languages, nor experience objects abstractly when they are not
present to sense, nor remember things in memory over a long
period of time, nor pass ideas like tools and tests on to future
offspring. This animal root however makes the core study of
aesthetic and artistic and architectonic objects biotic in
nature, but it also makes the acts of doing them anthropocentric.
For this reason the products architecture must seemingly be
relegated only to normal humans, although such products seemingly
need not necessarily be deferred or assigned as works of art,
even though they will have some aesthetic qualities found in
their form.
