Frances to Chris on several points...
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Pragmatism holds that normal mature humans come initially to any
mental task, from feeling to sensing and willing and thinking or
even knowing, with a high degree of healthy skepticism and doubt,
and not with some kind of naive innocent belief. It also holds
however that prior to and underneath this initial doubt is a
broader belief that guides the doubt. This belief is a naturally
given paradigm, and it is held to exist in every mind, because
the human cannot doubt without being aware that they doubt; which
is to say, humans have to know they indeed doubt before they ever
doubt. If this preexistent paradigm were admitted not to actually
exist at all, then it would necessitate holding that the
immediacy of an initial mental task must be an innocent paradigm
belief itself, which conclusion would be wrong, because it defies
what is already known through the common sense of mental tasks.
Pragmatism therefore finds that the normal human evolves to be
given by disposed tendency a natural paradigm or rigorous belief
system in mind; which paradigm is innate, inborn, embedded,
engrained, embodied, instinctive, intuitive, inclined, and so on.
This fundamental paradigm to say survive and thrive may evolve
further to be an article of religious faith or a principle of
political policy or a standard of scientific proof. Armed with
this combinatory paradigm in everyday ordinary life, the normal
human however engages common situations first with skeptical
doubt and next with critical judgement and last with fallible
belief. Underlying this tern of probability is the familiar
guiding paradigm of underlying stable belief. The eventual
outcome of these probabilities is the further making of a new
cultural paradigm or established belief system in mind that
compliments the preexisting natural paradigm. Armed with this
philosophic support, it may be possible to frame part of a
tentative theory of architecture. For example and to speculate,
the preexistent architectural "practice" might be the natural and
cultural paradigm, whereby the act of architecture is held to be
an accepted given that ought to be used. The "project" or plan as
further given is then first approached with skeptical doubt, and
the "process" or design is next driven with critical judgement,
and the "product" or construct is last taken with fallible
belief.
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On value, it is a fact that any object of sense has value to the
mere extent that it can satisfy the sheer need of a sentient
being; and the need furthermore need not be moral or rational.
Any value may of course exist without being sensed, but if some
part of a value is sensed, then the value is made real in mind.
If the value is not in any way given to sense, then the value may
exist as a fact, but it would not be real. The value is only as
real as sense. The factuality of the value is an objective
material construct, whether the value or the fact of it actually
exists as a concrete object or not. The reality of the value on
the other hand is a subjective mental construct. The real to
exist as a fact thus need not be actual and concrete, but may be
possible and abstract, or agreeable and discrete. It is thus
correct to hold for example that it is a fact many human beings
believe in the real existence of sensed value or hoped deity or
wicked evil.
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For the pragmatist, it is the "conceivable" consequences of an
object like a valued need that makes its belief concrete in
experience, whether the "conceivable" effects are factual or
practical or sensible. If a belief in the fact of an object like
a valued need ever can be conceived as true, then it probably
will be true. The full totality of all the "conceivable"
consequences that can be conceived in mind will tentatively yield
the complete force and final meaning of the object.
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