Philosophy of music from epistemology to communication (Japanese Edition)

Epistemology

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In this context she worked on the epistemology of testimony and published Wissen aus dem Zeugnis anderer — der Sonderfall medialer Berichterstattung Even though technoscientific research is as old as alchemy and pharmacy, agricultural research and synthetic chemistry, philosophers of science had little to say about it until recently.

This book series is the first to explicitly accept the challenge to study not just technical aspects of theory development and hypothesis testing but the specific ways in which knowledge is produced in a technological setting. When one seeks to achieve basic capabilities of manipulation, visualization, or predictive control, how are problems defined and research fields established, what kinds of explanations are sought, how are findings validated, what are the contributions of different kinds of expertise, how do epistemic and social values enter into the research process?

Formal Epistemology and Cartesian Skepticism

And most importantly for civic observers of contemporary research: Direct inquiries to Alfred Nordmann [e-mail link: Read Chapter 4 - Open Access. Finally, inclusivism has its own commonsense justification: It is not clear how to craft intermediary positions between inclusivism and exclusivism, given that the various brands of exclusivism are not absolute and test cases are instead subject to judgment along any number of parameters.

Inclusivism, by contrast—along with any attached views on, for example, architectural appreciation or the nature of aesthetic success in architecture—is an absolutist doctrine. All elements of the built environment—and much else besides—must count as architectural objects, or else the view fails.

The metaphysics of architecture covers a surprising range of questions for those who see in architecture no more than metaphysically mundane built structures or stones, wood, metal, and concrete arranged in a pleasing fashion: Given the familiarity of architecture in, and as constitutive of, our physical surroundings, it is strongly intuitive to think of architectural objects simply as buildings, in the way we think of the objects of the sculpture artform as sculptures, or the objects of cutlery as forks, knives, and spoons.

Yet such intuitions may be misguided. For one, though some built structures—including roadways, bazaars, and newspaper kiosks—are not buildings per se , we may take them to have architectural properties and thereby consider them as architectural objects. For another, the outputs of architecture are not limited to built structures but include as well models, sketches, and plans, and this variety prompts questions as to whether these are all reasonably considered architectural objects and which, if any, such form of output represents a primary sort of object in architecture.

A third consideration is the focus in architecture, not solely on whole or individual buildings, but also on parts of buildings and buildings considered in context, among other buildings and in landscapes downwards and upwards compositionality or modularity. A fourth consideration is that—as with music and photography—where multiple instantiations of a given work are possible, we may dispute whether the work is identical to the instancing built objects or else to the common entity e.

Concept and Epistemology, 1st Edition

In addition to such challenges, the intuitive view must best alternative views. To address one sort of question about the identity of an architectural object, we seek kind-wise criteria that establish when an object is architectural , instead of being non-architectural altogether or only derivatively so. To address another sort of identity question, we look for instance-wise criteria that establish when an object is this or that singular object, or an instance of a multiple object. Ready criteria for identifying object instances in architecture include historical, environmental, stylistic, and formal features—all of which may be read as signaling intentions to design particular, self-contained architectural objects.

Architectural objects as ontologically distinctive. Yet another way to pick out architectural objects is to set them apart from other art objects or artifacts.

An inclusivist may add features special to the built environment beyond the realm of buildings. Kinds of architectural ontologies. One option is concretism, which—in keeping with standard causal efficacy claims and expressed intentions of architects, clients, and users—suggests that architectural objects are either built structures or, on one variant, otherwise physically instantiated designs for such structures such as models. Concretism is supported by an artifactual ontology that subsumes architectural objects into the class of objects that are the product of intentions, designs, and choices on the view that all art objects are best so understood, see Dutton , S.

Davies , Thomasson , and Levinson One version of architectural artifactualism identifies buildings as systems Handler As against concretism, intentionality may be the mark of materially constituted, designed architectural objects but that need not commit us to their existence alone or their primacy among such objects. Moreover, taking intentions as determinative leaves the concretist with the problem of shifting intentions and unintended goals attached to built structures over time.

Abstractist alternatives follow a well-worn path in aesthetics Kivy ; Dodd ; critics include S. Davies ; Trivedi ; Kania ; D. Davies and accommodate an expansive architectural domain that includes historical, fantasy, and unbuilt works. Per classic Platonism, abstractism allows identification of an architectural object and concrete counterparts—including multiple replicas—by reference to a single, fixed, and unchanging background source of what real world structures or fantasy structures are and should look like. Against abstractism, some architectural objects are apparently singular because historically and geographically contingent Ingarden ; it is unclear what an experiential account of architectural abstracta looks like; and abstracta are not created whereas architectural objects are.

On his nominalist view, the objects turn out to be the built structures but an available realist interpretation—which may better accommodate the multiples that are key to his story—takes the objects to be the class of such structures.

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Another alternative suggests that architecture consists in actions or performances per Currie ; D. Lopes proposes the possibility of an events or temporal parts ontology for a kind of built structure that passes in and out of existence, though De Clercq , counters that such can be rendered in a material objects ontology through temporal indexing. Yet other ontologies are contextual or social constructivist, proposing that architectural objects exist, beyond their status as structured materials, in virtue of ways our reality is framed, psychologically, socially, or culturally per Hartmann , Margolis A shift in any such frame may bring about shifting identity in an architectural object, in the manner of Borgesian art indiscernibles Danto , and it may count in favor of those ontologies that architectural indiscernibles are all around, in the form of repurposed built structures.

Picking an ontology has wide-ranging significance, relative to questions of material constitution, composition, part-whole relations, properties, and relations in architecture, as well as the character of architectural notation, language, cognition, or behavior; there are also ramifications for simplicity and complexity, and the nature of ornament, proportion, context, and style.

In architectural practice, the ontology of choice also colors perspectives on such matters as intellectual property rights, collaborative work, and preservation of architectural structures. On one customary view of architectural objects, individual built structures or their abstract counterparts represent the primary unit of our aesthetic or, for that matter, any architectural, concern; all other ways of carving up the architectural world are derivative. This view is consonant with an equally customary perspective identifying architectural objects with architectural works.

Both alternatives share a commitment to some form of compositionality among architectural objects, that putting bits together yields aesthetically meaningful and utility-bearing composites, and taking them apart yields like results. In this, the mereological view represents a downward -compositionalism, suggesting that architectural aesthetics demands our focus on structural or other elements that can be meaningfully distinguished.

Questions about causality may seem out of place in discussions of immobile objects, such as most architecture represents. Yet architectural objects appear to have a role in causing events to happen or other things to come into being. For example, socio-psychological evidence suggests that architectural objects cause behavior, and much of architectural design is predicated on this claim. Thus, the presence of one or more architectural objects might have a causal effect on the genesis or character of one or more further works by dint of social utility, planning needs, or aesthetic drivers.

If true, then—as with consequentialism in ethics—further questions arise regarding the range of causal possibilities. Where ethicists ask whether a bad may generate a good, we may ask whether the presence or construction of a functionally or aesthetically impoverished architectural object might occasion the presence or construction of a more useful or pleasing architectural object. The notion that there is or should be an architectural language—or more than one—has a provenance dating to ancient times.

Variations of the thesis range over elements of an architectural language, how it may be used, and from whence it may be derived. The core idea, in its most prominent form, is that architecture as a corpus of design ideas realized or otherwise features a set of fundamental design and style elements which can be combined and related according to a set of rules syntax , capable of constituting or parlaying meaning semantics , and subject to contextual sensitivity and internal or relational constraints on deployment and realization pragmatics.

Beyond these structural parallels with basic facets of natural language, it is held that the purposes and possibilities of architecture qua language yield further parallels, best explained by the notion that architecture has, or even is , a language. Proponents of such views tend to subscribe, however, to defenses rooted in one or another feature of language. On syntactically-inspired views—the perspectives most indebted to the Vitruvian account—there is at least one architectural grammar or set of rules for guiding proper assemblage of parts and orientation, relation, and combination of whole architectural objects.

Some late twentieth century architectural theory embraced a grammar framework Alexander et al. Adherents of the view Summerson assign themselves the central task of identifying such rules. Even if this is achieved, though, a greater puzzle is whether there are identifiably preferable syntaxes—and what the criteria should look like. On a semantics-inspired view, architectural objects or their component parts bear meanings.

A primary motivation for this view is that, like objects of other artforms, architectural objects are expressive, which suggests that what they express is meaning Donougho Proponents point to an array of architectural meanings, internal or external to the object.

The Epistemological Turn in Islamic Reform Discourse, 1st Edition

The former tells us something about the architectural object its function or internal composition or how it relates to other architectural objects stylistic conventions ; the latter tells us something about the world, as for example, national or cultural associations per geographically variant design vocabularies , theological or spiritual significance per religious design vocabularies , or per Hegel , the Absolute Spirit.

A more ambitious proposal Baird has it that architectural objects exhibit such semantic phenomena as metaphor, metonymy, or ambiguity.

Primarily, though, buildings function symbolically through exemplification literal or explicit denotation or expression metaphorical exemplification of properties of ideas, sentiments, or objects in the world. While Goodman may have identified a denotative role for buildings, this is not clearly a semantic role.

A third approach, rooted in semiotics, emphasizes the role of architectural objects as signs that prompt spectator behavior Koenig , or indicate aspects of themselves, such as function Eco In either case, architectural objects are taken to operate as communicative systems Donougho The architectural language thesis, in its various forms, is widely discredited in recent philosophy of architecture.

To begin with, architecture features some qualities and exhibits some phenomena resembling those of natural language, but the parallels are neither comprehensive nor fully compelling. On the syntactic side, architecture may feature some brand of compositionality but different parts of architectural objects do not appear to function as do phrases or clauses Donougho As regards semantics, no likely candidate for an architectural vocabulary regularly yields any specific class or instance of meaning.

Nor are there truth conditions such as might supply the meaning of a well-defined architectural sequence Taurens As for pragmatics, there is no clear parallel with implicature or related phenomena, hence architecture is incapable of the accuracy or concision of expression we associate with language Clarke and Crossley Finally, relative to semiotics, not all—or even many—buildings signify and we would only want some to do so.

Regarding semantics, whatever we gain in fixing particular meanings to architectural objects, we stand to lose in fungibility of their forms. In the end, it is useful to ask what work we expect the architecture-as-language thesis to do.

One view Alexander et al. However, it may be sufficient to highlight ways in which architecture is like a language, though they do not add up to an architectural language Forty If so, then the thesis works best as a powerful metaphor rather than as literal truth. Goodman suggests that architecture is a borderline case of an allographic artform, as its notational schemes—in the form of plans—are intended to guarantee that all objects as are compliant are genuine instances of the work.

Said intention, Goodman proposes, is not fulfilled. Goodman, for his part, balks at taking architecture to be truly allographic given the core role of history and context in generating particular structures, and notational ambiguity that marks the analog medium of traditional plans. Digital design may well resolve the ambiguity problem, however, and allow indexing for history and context, rendering architecture allographic per Goodmanian criteria S. Thus, architectural formalism suggests that the sum total of aesthetic properties of an architectural object are or arise from formal properties, such that our aesthetic judgments are warranted based on experience and assessment of just those properties.

As architectural objects are typically non-representational and designed with manipulation and relation of forms as a primary task, it is natural that their formal properties be seen as playing a central role in our aesthetic appreciation of them. Our aesthetic judgment of I. Variants of architectural formalism take formal properties as the properties of or arising from the material or physical properties of built structures as consonant with concretism , or as the properties of or arising from the total properties specified by a set of formal parameters we identify with the architectural object as consonant with abstractism.

For the merelogico-formalist, it might count in favor of considering such parts as independent architectural objects that we can judge those parts on a formal basis alone. Other, non-formal aspects of an architectural object are discounted as contributing to its success. Mitrovic , embraces a normative formalist approach to criticism, on the grounds that the deeply visual nature of much cognition militates against basing appreciation or evaluation of architectural objects exclusively or primarily on features we understand through non-visual means such as context or history provide.

The anti-formalist traditionally focuses on the importance to aesthetic judgment about non-formal properties, including historical context; other, categorial forms of context Walton ; or non-cognitive properties. None of this judgment appears to have particular roots in forms Jefferson deployed, except as befit a neo-classical style—which style may be best grasped in historicist terms. In the latter case, beauty stands in relation to concepts with which we associate architectural objects, which for such objects are typically the ends towards which they are created. Per Parsons and Carlson , the problem with such intentionalist accounts in architecture or elsewhere where functional beauty pertains is that functions change.

This view is modeled on a selected effects account of biological functions, as translated into a marketplace-driven scheme, where evolution of design solutions is driven by demand over time. Functional beauty faces several challenges. Even in their advocacy, Parsons and Carlson caution against the suggestion that function solely determines form, as that would neglect other features of artifacts not possibly highlighted by their functions.

Such features include cultural significance or aspects of non-dependent beauty as may be found in, for example, architectural ornament. In the architectural realm, another challenge is posed by ruins, which may be beautiful but have no functions. To the charge that these represent counterexamples to functional beauty theory, one tack is to answer that if ruins represent architectural objects, they are dysfunctional and their beauty is manifest in non-functional ways Parsons and Carlson.

Functional beauty theory is saved on the whole but not as universally characteristic of architectural objects. A further challenge casts doubt on seeing functional beauty as the only variant of dependent beauty, or beauty as the sole aesthetic valence of interest to a viable notion of dependent aesthetic properties. In an architectural vein, those variants may include spiritual, emotional, or conceptual frameworks we bring to our grasp of such built structures as houses of worship, memorials, or triumphal arches.

We can tell functional stories about these sorts of structures in sociological or psychological analyses but not or not only , as functional beauty accounts would have it, in terms of their mechanical or system-wise functioning. Looking beyond functional beauty—or more broadly, dependent beauty—accounts of architecture, an inclusivist will seek the thread that ties together architectural objects with aesthetic properties of all description, be they functional, otherwise dependent, or freely independently endowed with beauty or other such properties.

Thus, a modernist gas station and a Tschumi folie may share an elegance unrelated to functional ascription or the lack thereof. A general theory of architectural objects, along inclusivist lines, suggests at least a moderate formalism. A staple of philosophy of art is that our experience of art objects—direct or otherwise—is central to basic belief formation about them first and foremost, aesthetic belief and appreciation of art objects.

The philosophy of architecture is generally in agreement, though architectural objects may be of special character in this regard, as our experiences of them gives rise to or influences an extended range of psychological states. A piece of that environmental understanding is local to the built structure itself: In addition to facilitating understanding, appreciation, or use of architectural objects, experience might also play—or reflect—a constitutive role.

The content and corresponding faculties of architectural experience likely include some mix of the cognitive, emotive, and sensual. Whereas an abstractist may claim that experience of architectural objects is solely a matter of intellectual grasp, even an anti-abstractist formalist needs the sensory as well to account for experience of concrete shapes. Abstractist intellectualism notwithstanding, accounts of architectural experience typically focus on multiple content modalities.

The idea is that fully comprehending the pleasure of the experience and thereby establishing its aesthetic value requires cognition, in the form of attention to details and understanding of the architectural object. We are at all turns required to make interpretative choices in parsing ambiguous or multiform aspects of the built environment.

Scruton focuses on voluntary deployment of the imagination in perception at a macro-level, concerning such matters as whether we see a sequence of columns as grouped one way or another, or see pilasters as ornamental or structural. A generalized version of this account looks to perceptual tasks at a more granular level. Our experiences of space and spatial positioning, depth, edge detection, color, and light yield multiple interpretative possibilities across architectural objects, including the simplest forms and smallest or largest parts of objects.

These perceptual tasks are pervasive and constant; sometimes involuntary and in the background, and other times as shaped by our willful imagining. The dimensions of architectural experience are even larger when taking into account the full breadth of the sensual. Following a long tradition of viewing architecture through art historical lenses, Scruton focuses on architectural experience as primarily visual and static. In addition, though, other sensory modalities are factors: Such modalities among the non-visual include the tactile, aural, and olfactory.

Moreover, much architectural experience is proprioceptive, incorporating visual information into a broader set of stimuli to grasp bodily position and movement in relation to the built environment. Sensation of movement might seem irrelevant to experiencing an immobile object, save for the fact that, in architecture as in sculpture not all facets of a given whole work, or many other architectural objects, can be perceived at the same time.

The spectator or user must move around or within the object to perceive any significant percentage of it, much less the whole. As architectural objects standardly shape our actual, imagined, or remembered bodily engagement, so are our richest experiences of architecture informed by such engagement J. Central as bodily experience may be, it cannot be the only source of architectural beliefs. Considering the great breadth of the architectural enterprise, it may not even be the best source.

On these and other bases an architectural knowledge of special character is built. Knowledge of a building or other architectural objects follows well-worn paths in some aspects of general knowledge of art. In particular, architectural beliefs encompass judgments of aesthetic properties of the built environment, are norm-governed in some fashion, and may be transmissible via testimony. Yet other aspects of knowing architectural objects diverge from the well-worn path, as reflective of special characteristics of the architectural enterprise and its products and consumption.

Theoretical and historical brands of architectural knowledge encompass viable beliefs about familiar core concerns of architecture, including basic design elements of the built environment; their combinations, relations, and properties; their style; external factors social, economic, cultural, etc. Some such beliefs are empirically supported; others not. Practical brands of architectural knowledge encompass viable beliefs about the engineering and technical means of constructing architectural objects, ensuring structural integrity, and guaranteeing mechanical function, socially, industrially, or ecologically beneficial use.

Such beliefs—particularly as hitched to formalized, experimental, or predictive dimensions of the enterprise—are sometimes seen as constituting an architectural science. They are typically though not exclusively empirical in character and, to some tastes, relegated to a status of adjunct architectural knowledge, that is, useful for architecture but outside the domain proper. What counts as practical knowledge in architecture is often seen as encompassing beliefs of a largely non-aesthetic nature. Yet other categories reflect a range of types and sources of architectural knowledge. Another division distinguishes between architectural beliefs associated with creators and users.

My experience of a built structure qua creator is perforce different than my experience of the same structure qua user, and the sorts of beliefs I arrive at may differ accordingly. As architect, Jones believes that an arch of one design but not another will keep the bridge up; as someone strolling underneath the bridge, Smith believes that an arch of a different design would have been a greater aesthetic success. This much accords with other artforms featuring practical functions. Further, architectural beliefs may differ by their technical or non-technical nature; by perspective and role of the belief-holder; or by facts about physical experience of the work or other modalities of belief acquisition.

Architectural knowledge in broader context. To see how architectural knowledge may be similar to, or differ from, aesthetic knowledge generally, consider two dimensions of aesthetic knowledge, knowing through art and knowing about art Kieran and Lopes As concerns knowing through architecture, cognitive content arises in reflecting—to varying degrees—taste and style sensibilities of its creators, structural properties per engineering principles deployed; and cultural and social values of historical, communal, and economic contexts.

To know a built structure in this regard is to know such matters as the tradition in which it is built; design aspirations of the architect and initial occupants; and intentions relative to contributing to the built or natural landscape. The success of this thesis is predicated on successful communication through architectural objects, whether as symbols or otherwise. Architectural belief and knowledge have as well wholly distinctive features, reflective of special characteristics of the domain, its practice, and its objects.

Architectural objects as wholes are systems or system-like, in that they constitute sets of interrelated structural components, with characteristic behavior or processes yielding outputs from inputs, and where the parts are connected by distinctive structural and behavioral relations Boyce That we take whole architectural objects to be or to be represented as systems or system-like suggests how architectural beliefs are distinctive among beliefs about artworks.

Whereas the first two functional and interactional features are typical to all design, the third feature marks architecture as an artform that, in providing an immersive and systemic physical environment, intensely draws on and shapes social, psychological, and economic features of experience. Our beliefs about architectural objects and interactions with and in them are shaped correspondingly, in ways that do not arise in engagement with other artforms.

Partial and full information. Representation in architecture encompasses multiple modes, including built objects, physical models, virtual models, data arrays, plans, sketches, photographs, and drawings. Each such mode may be viable as representing an architectural object just in case some features of the object are adequately, accurately, regularly, and optimally represented through the mode. This view of viable representation in architecture is at odds with the standards for such in other artforms. Consider a representation of the Mona Lisa.

If you do not have complete visual access through the representation from any acceptable angle to the full tableau, you may be said to lack full acquaintance with the work through the representation, and your consequent aesthetic beliefs about the Mona Lisa may be discounted accordingly. By contrast, if architectural beliefs required anything like full acquaintance with the object or fully informed testimony to be viable, our architectural beliefs would not typically or frequently be viable.

In architecture, as in other design fields, design problems are not thoroughly or fully articulated all at once or by any particular individual. The primary components of design knowledge—problems and their possible solutions—are instead distributed across persons. Art and architecture worlds per se are undoubtedly not a sole source of epistemic norms. It may be thought that qualities of architecture such as systematicity and the deeply social character of the discipline are immaterial to aesthetic beliefs. However, architecture is a holistic enterprise: In like fashion, that architectural objects constitute systems is pertinent in shaping aesthetic beliefs because there are more and less attractive ways to shape the flow of persons, or even electricity, through a built structure.

And that architectural objects are designed through social processes has import for corresponding aesthetic beliefs. As distinct from mere experience of architectural objects, appreciation of architectural objects brings to bear cognition and other inputs, such as history and context. Appreciation goes beyond knowledge , too, insofar as we may know an architectural object and its qualities without appreciating it. Thus, Winters proposes that appreciating architecture consists in enjoyment of architectural objects from experience, tout court , as wed to understanding them, where the latter consists in grasping their aesthetic significance in specifically visual fashion, and critically assessing the judgment of architects in addressing design challenges.

Architectural appreciation may be built on the judgment of others; it is essential to rendering judgment. Accordingly, learning to appreciate architectural objects is a cornerstone of architectural education. A key contributing feature in this last regard is acquiring agility with classifying in the domain Leder et al. The appreciation and judgment of architectural objects are typically thought to reflect aesthetic and utility-wise considerations, and engage individual perspective, experience, reasoning, and reflection such as we associate with appreciating and judging in other artforms.

One question regarding appreciation is whether there is a special mode attached to architectural objects. We might think this is so given that, unlike most arts though very like other design forms , appreciation in architecture is aesthetic and utility-oriented. A resulting puzzle is whether, and under what circumstances, we might have one without the other. Further questions regarding appreciation concern the relative roles in appreciation of individual experience of architecture, as against the social or the environmental.

The prevailing philosophical view of architectural appreciation is a psychological account with debts to the Kantian tradition: Iseminger provides a general aesthetics account in this vein. A primary variant has it that architectural appreciation is the product of individual cognition of the content, form, properties, and relations of architectural objects. A recent variation suggests that, in addition to or in lieu of cognitive response, physiological experience proprioception is a central source of beliefs associated with architectural appreciation.

On either model, it is experience of individuals that feeds and influences appreciation. Social and Environmental Role in Architectural Appreciation. Direct, immediate individual experience is not the only source of information shaping architectural appreciation. Considering the breadth of the architectural enterprise, it may not even be the best source.

Others include access to information about works through standard representational modes that are not the works themselves for example, drawings or photographs , transmission of tacit working knowledge through apprenticeship learning, and collective belief formation through client briefings and studio crits. Architectural appreciation is social in building on our understanding of architectural objects as it develops, and matures, in experience of a built structure with and in relation to other individuals and groups of people.

Indeed, a central goal of architectural education is structured imparting of collective wisdom as to how to best classify architectural objects and, relatedly, what the markers of appreciation have looked like, or should look like—as well as how they articulate with practical knowledge. Further, architectural appreciation is environmental in building on our understanding of architectural objects based on experiences in relation to their natural and built surroundings.

On one view, an architectural object may be more difficult to appreciate if we find that relation unexpected, or contrary to normative sensibility Carlson If, however, appreciation does not require enjoyment or satisfaction of any sort—and instead engages our understanding of, for example, what was intended and why—we may well appreciate in its own right an architectural object that has a surprising, even obnoxious relation to its surroundings. It provides anyone with an interest in philosophical issues related to understanding with a great deal to think about and learn from.

Explaining Understanding contains some excellent essays that are likely to become highly influential. Grimm is Professor of Philosophy at Fordham University. He received his Ph. She received her Ph. She works mainly in epistemology, philosophy of engineering sciences and technology, image theory, and design ethics. Learn More about VitalSource Bookshelf. An eBook version of this title already exists in your shopping cart. If you would like to replace it with a different purchasing option please remove the current eBook option from your cart.

Edited by Stephen R.

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