When it becomes conventional to dismiss the conventional, then what does the pragmatist do?
Sullivan (and Loos) were certainly neither the first, nor last, architects to attack the conventions of their profession -- and isn't it now conventional to celebrate such an attack as one mark of an important artist? Sullivan's attacks on the conventions and institutions of his day could not have been more vicious: "Anyone who will take the trouble to investigate the architecture schools will shortly discover that, as institutions of learning, so-called, they are bankrupt, if by solvency, we mean what makes for the good of the people. Not only are they useless to our democratic aspirations, they are actively pernicious, and their theory of operation is a fraud upon the commonwealth which supports them. Their teachings are one long, continuous imbecility. They are essentially parasitic -- sucking the juices of healthy tissues and breeding more parasites" ( hmmmm ... sounds like my opinion of contemporary art schools) If an institution whatsoever were to receive healthy lads, and after four years of "care" return them mentally and physically crippled, broken-winded, weak hearted and infected, there would be a hue and cry ..... but when precisely such young men are taken in by an institution, so-called of learning, a so-called school of architecture, and in four years are turned out mentally dislocated, with vision obscured, hearts atrophied, and perverted sensibilities -- who cares! And why? Because it is not so easily seen" And still my question remains, Frances: if the pragmatist has no faith in hers, or anybody's, judgment, what is she trying to pragmatically accomplish by writing a philosophy of architecture? To help the conventional become even more so? Rather than just making pretty theories, aren't pragmatists supposed to be primarily concerned with practical consequences and real effects? >The science and theory of review, on the empirical research and inquiry into architecture, would be the main start for me in sifting through the agreed opinions of learned experts in their respective groups. For any individual expert to personally select a good sample of architecture as an exemplar to stand for all of architecture is to use a token with a tone as a type. The individual solely alone in judging a work is however unreliable, because they could be deluded and not even realize it. The institutional and industrial and international standards for conferring the status of architectural accreditation and certification and authorization are not merely arbitrary social inventions without any basis in natural causes or laws. Any sound theory of architecture that may emerge from experts is a cultural law that must be derived from natural facts, such as a selected sampling of works that are admired on site by sight, and made prone to examination or investigation. Such a law is derived from a factual habit of conduct, and its truth will exist regardless of whether it is merely agreed to by a sheer convention. The conventional ground can be as good and true a fact as the causal ground or the formal ground, because they are all culled from dispositional tendencies. In concrete fact and in actual deed, the formal is preparatory to the causal, and the causal is contributory to the conventional, and the conventional is consummatory of them both, so that there is necessarily a combinatory progression at work here. The pragmatist principles at work here that impact on truth and law are fallibility and probability ____________________________________________________________ Become a Psychologist, Therapist, or Counselor. Click here to earn a Psychology Degree. http://thirdpartyoffers.netzero.net/TGL2231/fc/BLSrjnxaLhE1QQnKwHG6UW2HsIbwQO ZrSMnPoOfzA5UhPnGAcq715fQszwU/
