Cultural Institutions as Formative Elements in the Work of Behrens, Utzon and Kahn

This paper is concerned with the role of human institutions as generators of architectural form, with reference to the writings and works of Peter Behrens, Jørn Utzon, and Louis Kahn. These architects were willing to regard human institutions as living cultural entities, which ought to have a determinative influence on the design of the buildings that were to house them. This may be contrasted with the naïve functionalism promoted by some of their contemporaries. The paper begins with a brief view of the theoretical background alluded to above, and then turns to the theatre as a primary cultural activity, and the prominent place it held in Behrens's thinking during the opening years of the twentieth century. Affinities are explored between Behrens's concept of the theatre and Utzon's subsequent treatment of the theatre as a central civic institution in his design for the Sydney Opera House (1956). A parallel is seen in Louis Kahn's insistence that the starting-point for an architectural project should lie in a vision of the human institution which the project is to serve. A critical role for cultural institutions as objects of architectural attention indeed was present in urban schemes produced from the early twentieth century, as exemplified by the work of Tony Garnier.

Practical Expressivism

Morality is a human institution that can be adequately understood as a naturalistically explicable coordination device, whereby human beings work towards, sustain, and refine mutually beneficial patterns of action and reaction. This morality owes nothing to an ethical reality that exists outside of human inclination: moral judgements and argument do not (attempt to) discover, describe or cognize a robust realm of moral facts or properties. Rather, such judgements express affective or practical states of mind, similar to preferences, desires, policies, or plans. Practical Expressivism argues that the locating of this expression within the wider coordinating practice of morality provides an attractive explanation and partial vindication of the forms and assumptions of this uniquely human institution. This book therefore defends a version of expressivism about morality, and one that embraces the ‘quasi-realist’ project of showing how an expressivist understanding of morality is consistent with the judgements of that practice being potentially disagreed with, logically regimented, and mind-independently true. In doing so it provides domesticating accounts of disagreement, logic, truth, and mind-independence, and shows how expressivism is compatible with truth-conditional semantics. The version of expressivism defended is ‘practical’ both insofar as it emphasizes the importance of the practical, coordinating, role of moral practice in pursuing the quasi-realist project, and insofar as it generates recipes and strategies that expressivists can repeatedly deploy to explain the forms and assumptions of our moral practice.

MERLEAU-PONTY: INSTITUCIÓN Y EDIPO

En el curso dictado en Collège de France sobre la institución y la pasividad, Merleau-Ponty le otorgó una importancia particular a las problemáticas freudianas. La sexualidad y muy especialmente el Complejo de Edipo, es presentado como ejemplo de la institución humana en un doble sentido: en cuanto clase de institución que se diferencia de la institución vital y como una institución antropomórfica. Sus momentos –sexualidad prepuberal, periodo de latencia, pubertad– ejemplifican la estructura de toda institución: la anticipación, el desvío y la reanudación y ponen de manifiesto su temporalidad propia. En vistas a la importancia del Complejo de Edipo en la arquitectura general del curso, el presente trabajo tiene por objetivo reponer la interpretación realizada por Merleau-Ponty a los efectos de comprender la especificidad de la institución humana. De este modo, se pretende realizar una aproximación al vínculo entre temporalidad e institución tal como Merleau-Ponty lo considera en el curso en cuestión.In the course dictated in Collège de France on the institution and the passiveness, Merleau-Ponty granted a particular importance to the Freudian problematics. The sexuality and very specially the Complex of Oedipus, is presented as example of the human institution in a double meaning: regarding a type of institution that differs from the vital institution and as an anthropomorphic institution. Its moments – prepuberal sexuality, period of latency, puberty –exemplify the structure of any institution: the anticipation, the detour and the resumption and they reveal his own temporality. In conference to the importance of the Complex of Oedipus in the general architecture of the course, the present work has for aim re-put the interpretation realized by Merleau-Ponty to the effects of understanding the specificity of the human institution. Thus, one tries to realize an approximation to the link between temporality and institution as Merleau-Ponty considers it in the course in question.

Sanctuary: an institutional vision for the digital age

PurposeTrends in information technology and contemplative practices compel us to consider the intersections of information and contemplation. The purpose of this paper is to consider these intersections at the level of institutions.Design/methodology/approachFirst, the notion of institution is defined and discussed, along with information institutions and contemplative institutions. Next, sanctuary is proposed and explored as a vision for institutions in the digital age.FindingsSanctuary is a primordial human institution that has especial urgency in the digital age. This paper develops an info-contemplative framework for sanctuaries, including the elements: stability, silence, refuge, privacy and reform.Research limitations/implicationsThis is a conceptual paper that, though guided by prior empirical and theoretical work, would benefit from application, validation and critique. This paper is meant as a starting point for discussions of institutions for the digital age.Practical implicationsAs much as this paper is meant to prompt further research, it also provides guidance and inspiration for professionals to infuse their work with aspects of sanctuary and be attentive to the tensions inherent in sanctuary.Originality/valueThis paper builds on discourse at the intersection of information studies and contemplative studies, also connecting this with recent work on information institutions.

Church

This chapter exposits and analyses the central contours of Barth’s mature doctrine of the church, in which the church is innovatively characterized by a twofold ec-centricity—a double decentring of its life and work. In a first section, it considers Barth’s radical understanding of the being of the church in relation to Jesus Christ and the Spirit, and the way in which the church has its originating centre outwith itself, in its being from God. In a second section, it attends to the creative way in which Barth conceives of the church as a divine event, and thereby relativizes the church as human institution. In a third section, it focuses on the significance and content of the human activity of the church, and the provocative way in which Barth locates the ultimate purpose of the church outwith itself, in its being for the world. In a fourth section, the chapter explores in outline some of the critical responses to Barth’s groundbreaking doctrine of the church. Finally, by way of conclusion, the chapter considers the relationship of Barth’s ecclesiology to ecumenical conversation.

The Weather

Reaffirming the idea that "that which is first worth knowing is that which is nearest at hand," Bailey writes about the "proper attitude" towards the weather, arguing that it cannot be "bad" since it is not a "human institution" and that, instead, any kind of weather puts us in sympathy with our environment.

Coping with Modern Challenges and Anticipating the Future of Criminal Jury Trials

This chapter analyzes how researchers and courts can cope with modern challenges for 21st-century criminal jury trials and discusses what should be expected from criminal juries and future jury research. The chapter asks how a receptive legal system interested in making changes to maximize the fairness of criminal jury trials might respond. It reviews the important themes and massive empirical literature that this remarkable collection presents in vivid and thoughtful detail, highlighting the persistent issues of race and ethnicity, as well as new challenges and opportunities that have accompanied the dramatic advances in technology. The chapter raises questions about the application of empirical findings on jury behavior in the context of the legal system and considers the omissions and incomplete understandings that future research needs to address in order to provide a full picture of this important human institution.

Creating Socially Sustainable Enterprise

This chapter discusses evidence that the design of business as a human institution can be improved far beyond the current template of corporations owned by financial institutions, a template which led to the near collapse of the global economy in 2008, with costly consequences for generations of taxpayers. Re-evaluating business theory from a perspective of human evolution leads to the recognition that human autonomy and voluntary co-operation in every business require the rights currently bundled as ‘ownership’—the rights to information, influence, and wealth—to be allocated, not to financiers, but to the individuals directly co-operating as participants in the wealth-creation process. Evidence is discussed showing that member-owned enterprises perform as well or better than conventionally structured business in terms of human and economic sustainability, and that the problems of financing such enterprises are soluble.

Oeconomy and Ecology in Early Modern England

The conceptual foundations of ecology were laid in the seventeenth century by the natural philosopher Kenelm Digby, when he developed the idea of “the oeconomy of nature.” Digby transformed the practical agrarian discourse of “natural oeconomy” (household management), which links human beings to their environments, into the natural-philosophical concept of the oeconomy of nature. Using the oeconomic values of thrift, regularity, and efficient dispensation to conceptualize natural processes, Digby projected a human institution, with all its ideological baggage, onto the natural world. But, for Digby, closely observing nonhuman creatures in the framework of oeconomy opened up the more radical possibility of a decentered system, in which each creature is a potential householder, each the center of its own oeconomy of nature.

The cultural evolution of shamanism

Shamans, including medicine men, mediums, and the prophets of religious movements, recur across human societies. Shamanism also existed among nearly all documented hunter-gatherers, likely characterized the religious lives of many ancestral humans, and is often proposed by anthropologists to be the “first profession,” representing the first institutionalized division of labor beyond age and sex. In this article, I propose a cultural evolutionary theory to explain why shamanism consistently develops and, in particular, (1) why shamanic traditions exhibit recurrent features around the world; (2) why shamanism professionalizes early, often in the absence of other specialization; and (3) how shifting social conditions affect the form or existence of shamanism. According to this theory, shamanism is a set of traditions developed through cultural evolution that adapts to people's intuitions to convince observers that a practitioner can influence otherwise unpredictable, significant events. The shaman does this by ostensibly transforming during initiation and trance, violating folk intuitions of humanness to assure group members that he or she can interact with the invisible forces that control uncertain outcomes. Entry requirements for becoming a shaman persist because the practitioner's credibility depends on his or her “transforming.” This contrasts with dealing with problems that have identifiable solutions (such as building a canoe), in which credibility hinges on showing results and outsiders can invade the jurisdiction by producing the outcome. Shamanism is an ancient human institution that recurs because of the capacity of cultural evolution to produce practices adapted to innate psychological tendencies.