“The equilibrium between advancing technologies and
the enthusiasm of unpredictable human thoughts.”
SID: 470371455
Tutor: Charlotte
Tutorial: 12pm-1pm
Introduction:
This essay attempts to investigate the idea of whether there
could be a perfect equilibrium between advancing
technologies and the enthusiasm of unpredictable human
thoughts, indeed, the tolerance of each other.
Under the influence of industrial revolution starting from the
nineteenth century, later the scientific revolution, today the
artificial intelligence, the society is almost overthrown by the
concept of enlightenment thinking. It pumps us to think of
whether there is any place left for the traditional method of
good old-fashion empiricism. On the appearance, technology
and human empathy run counter to each other; indeed, the
relationship between the two has never been simple.
The essay aims to clarify on several grounds and raise
awareness of things that technicality has left behind with the
analysis of several buildings. The first argument is related to
the origin and the start point of enlightenment concerning
Plato’s Republic. Then discuss the relationship between exact
science and empiricism. Also, the necessity of technological
rules and its effect on the sublime. Finally, the interaction
between actual and virtual, clearness and obscurity.
Section 1: Gloom-Enlightenment and metaphysics
The idea of enlightenment and metaphysics instead of
confronting each other are both coming from the same root
with distinct status.
Plato has illustrated the process of turning away from
stereotypes to archetypes in his allegory of the cave.1 He has
1
Francis Macdonald Cornford, The Republic of Plato, (Oxford
University Press, New York, 1970), 233
demonstrated that there is a great difficulty to undertake that
transformation. When suddenly come out of the cave, the eyes
are first blind, and then slowly adjust to the light. Plato
suggests that if a person could be free from worldly concerns,
the soul would turn around towards true reality. In Plato’s last
writings he expressed the longing of all demythologizing, and
that number became enlightenment’s canon.2
However, it does not necessarily suggest that the program of
coming out of the cave is due to enlightenment thinking at all.
The knowledge gained by the process of withdrawing the soul
from the weight charged with affinity to the moral world3 is
not necessarily the knowledge of technologies and science. It
is also culture based and human based. Thinking opposite to
Plato, could the reality and truth be a form that engendered
from that shadow cased on the well. It could be that human
first has a thought which generated from himself, then trying
to organize mediums to build the physical object from that
thought. Later the product of thought turns into reality.
This thought that science could not prove has probably
become metaphysics.
This argument is supported by ‘The concept of
Enlightenment’.4 In the book mythology has regarded as an
endless process of enlightenment, and that every definite
2
Max Horkheimer, and Adorno Theodor W. "The concept of
Enlightenment," in Dialectic of Enlightenment: Philosophical
Fragments, trans. Edmund Jephcott (Stanford: Stanford University
Press, 2002), 10
3
Francis Macdonald Cornford, The Republic of Plato, (Oxford
University Press, New York, 1970), 233
4
Max Horkheimer, and Adorno Theodor W. "The concept of
Enlightenment," in Dialectic of Enlightenment: Philosophical
Fragments, trans. Edmund Jephcott (Stanford: Stanford University
Press, 2002), 7
theoretical view is subjected to the annihilating criticism that
it is only a belief until enlightenment itself have been reduced
to animistic magic.5 They criticized that in progress towards
modern science human beings have discarded meaning, the
concept of things is replaced by a formula that could be
explained by simple causation, by rules and probability.
Section 2: Gleam-Exact science, human science and
Empiricism-as a counter to Enlightenment rationality, in
which confusion, tumult and general unrest dominate: Notre
Dame du Haut
As Foucault suggests that modern episteme should be
represented by three dimensions which include deductive
science which is mathematical and physical science, empirical
science which is the science of language, life and production
and distribution of wealth, lastly, philosophical reflection.6
Human science which relates to psychology and sociology7, is
an exception or even an internal threat to the modern
episteme. However, it is a simple fact that man should have
become the object of science which is in the order of
knowledge.
In reality, what amounts to an empiricist or cognitive
architecture is vague.8 One piece of architecture that could
best express that idea of mentality is the Notre Dame du Haut
5
Ibid.
Michel Foucault, “Chapter 10 The Human Sciences” in The Order
of Things (New York: Pantheon Books, 1970), 347
7
Ibid., 348
8
Javier Simonpietri, Aspects of an Empiricist Cognitive Architecture:
An Initial Approximation to the Functional Organization of Minds
and the Development of Mental Representations. July 2007
6
in Ronchamp by Le Corbusier.9 Due to the inability to
categorize the building, it is covered with mysteriousness. It
functions as a Catholic church within a religious site of
pilgrimage. The space created is pure without any old-tedious
ornamentations and visual noise. The purpose set by the
designer is to make it reflective and meditative. Therefore, it is
all about the sensations. The white wall and various light
openings excite the highest potential of inner thought. It gets
rid of the outside world, with the purpose to gain knowledge
and self-cognitions. The roof although block the sky, the
curved shape extends up towards heaven.
The majority of chapels and churches seem to drag us back
into a cave in order to clarify the soul and gain knowledge,
compare to Plato’s allegory of the cave. Another example is
the Bruder Klaus Chapel.10 It is proof that the process of
obtaining knowledge as Plato described could be reversible.
The building’s complexity in style and form is not the same as
the complexity that the technological formulation could
produce, because if rationalized, it is only a composition of
simple shapes.
The roof no doubt has said to be a mimicry of an airplane
wing and used aerodynamic science as the only elements in
the building that has influenced by the mechanism.
Undeniably, science and technology are the indispensable part
9
Andrew Kroll, AD Classics: Ronchamp/Le Corbusier. Arch Daily, 3
November 2010. Accessed from:
https://www.archdaily.com/84988/ad-classics-ronchamp-lecorbusier#
10
Megan Sveiven, Bruder Klaus Field Chapel/Peter Zumthor, Archi
Daily, 26 January 2011. Accessed from:
https://www.archdaily.com/106352/bruder-klaus-field-chapelpeter-zumthor
of the architecture. However, as a tool, it is unlikely that
mathematics could constitute human sciences in its particular
positivity, as Foucault argues, even if it did, it would create a
superficial counter-effect.11
Michel Foucault, “Chapter 10 The Human Sciences” in The Order
of Things (New York: Pantheon Books, 1970), 351
11
（Notre Dame du Haut in Ronchamp by Le Corbusier）
Section 3: Sublime- Clearness and obscurity, technical rules
and sublime: Bruder Klaus Chapel
 It is a mere delusion in attempting to reduce sublime
to technical rules. “The Sublime is born in a man, and
not to be acquired by instruction.”
 On the contrary, a man only learns from ruled
directions while giving up on his waywardness.
Section 4: Fragment-Actual and virtual-ambiguityunfinished-reticence-real-potentiality-mind as decentralized
functional web: Teshima Art Museum,21st Century Museum
 ‘law is outside itself, and that sovereignty has the
legitimate power to suspend the law.’12 It somehow
can be interpreted as technical rules can be suspended
by humanity in the same way.
12
Giorgio Agamben, “The Messiah and the Sovereign”, 161

Man’s intangible thoughts do not need to actualize
itself either, based on its indivisible nature with rules
already exists. Similar to the relationship between
actual and virtual.
Conclusion
Although there are tensions between the innovation of
technology and human empathy, they are inseparable to each
other and always have been and will be existing
simultaneously.
Annotated Bibliography
1. Cornford, Francis. “The Republic of Plato” (Oxford
University Press, New York, 1970): 227-235
In the allegory of the cave, Plato argues that
every man has the potential to possess the power of
learning the truth. We each have the organ to see but
what various is that some of us have been dragged and
turned away by the changing world. Thus, the soul has
been bent downwards by weight charged with affinity to
this moral world.13 He suggests that if a person could be
free from worldly concerns, the soul would turn around
towards true reality.
He also raised the argument that a state can
never be properly governed either by the uneducated
who know nothing of truth or by men who with all his
mind pursuing culture. 14 The same rule could be
13
Francis Macdonald Cornford, The Republic of Plato, (Oxford
University Press, New York, 1970), 233
14
Ibid.
interpreted in light of architecture. The designers need to
be educated to climb the ascent to the vision of truth,
while must not become insist on its heights and refuse to
come down again to the ‘prisoners’. Plato’s theory
provides a ground towards the need for the balance
between illusion and reality, with a particular emphasis
on the importance of knowledge.
Word Count: 194
2. Foucault, Michel. “Chapter 10 The Human Sciences” in
The Order of Things: An Archaeology of the Human
Sciences. New York: Pantheon Books, 1970: 344-366
Foucault in his book has shown his concern that
human sciences are facing a difficulty, as to their
precariousness, uncertainty, approximation and
imperfection as sciences, their dangerous familiarity with
philosophy, their reliance upon other domains of
knowledge.15 He emphasised here the importance of
knowing mathematics as a tool to practise formalizations
of human science. Stating it as the clearest, the most
untroubled and transparent way that human sciences
may maintain.16 He has provided evidence including
Fechner and Condorcet who are able to find the
probability of emotion.17 It leads to the question that if
this idea could be taken to the extreme, whether all
things derived from empirical practices could have its
potential to be formalized by mathematics. However, he
then discussed on the counter side given that it is unlikely
that mathematics could constitute human sciences in its
Michel Foucault, “Chapter 10 The Human Sciences” in The Order
of Things (New York: Pantheon Books, 1970), 348
16
Ibid., 351
17
Ibid., 349
15
particular positivity.18 His demonstration of human
science and exact science combine with the phrase ‘art
without science is noting’ shows perplexing
complementation between regulation and the things that
cannot possibly be regulated. Unlike Plato, Foucault’s
overall arguments seem to lean toward the unique
nature of human knowledge.
Word Count: 192
3. Horkheimer, Max and Theodor W. Adorno. "The concept
of Enlightenment," in Dialectic of Enlightenment:
Philosophical Fragments. Translated by Edmund
Jephcott. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2002: 1-34.
The authors regard the Enlightenment’s program
as a disenchantment of the world and aim to dispel
myths with knowledge. Confusingly enough a paradox
has been raised that all myth were themselves the
products of enlightenment.19 They expressed their
concern that even the denial of God itself, falls under the
same judgment as metaphysics.20 They seem to take the
view that mythology is an endless process of
enlightenment, and that every definite theoretical view is
subjected to the annihilating criticism that it is only a
belief until enlightenment itself have been reduced to
animistic magic.21
18
Ibid., 351
Max Horkheimer, and Adorno Theodor W. "The concept of
Enlightenment," in Dialectic of Enlightenment: Philosophical
Fragments, trans. Edmund Jephcott (Stanford: Stanford University
Press, 2002), 5
20
Ibid., 19
21
Ibid., 7
19
They have taken a criticized view and argued that
Enlightenment pushed aside the classical demand to
think thinking,22 instead, thought could be reified as an
autonomous process under enlightenment, so that the
machine can finally replace it. The mathematical
procedure became a kind of ritual of thought, it made
thought into a thing, a tool. It leads itself into a similar
position as totalitarian, and bourgeois where everything
is ruled by equivalence.23 Overall, they tend to support
the view that scientific knowledge has not always driven
us forward by itself but interdependent with myth.
Word Count: 199
4. Kant, Immanuel. “what is Enlightenment”, 1784
Kant has interpreted enlightenment as a man’s
release from his self-incurred tutelage, thus, it is a
process of developing one’s own reasoning instead of
using what has been told by others. The hesitation to
discover truth has been timid and frightened by the high
possibility of failure. He states that some of us have been
limited by everlasting tutelages such as statutes, formulas
also misemployment.24 However, without those
regulations and limits, one could fail over the narrowest
ditch as he is not accustomed to that kind of free motion.
He argues that there is a public tendency of incitement by
guardians who are capable of some enlightenment, and
the effect is harmful as it could result in implanting
22
Ibid., 19
Max Horkheimer, and Adorno Theodor W. "The concept of
Enlightenment," in Dialectic of Enlightenment: Philosophical
Fragments, trans. Edmund Jephcott (Stanford: Stanford University
Press, 2002), 4
24
Immanuel Kant, “what is Enlightenment”, 1784, 1
23
prejudices.25 In his theory, the public can only attain
enlightenment slowly by themselves. Unlike the
totalitarian nature of enlightenment mentioned by
Horkheimer, Max, and Theodor, Kant has seen the
process of enlightenment more as anti-despotism and
encourages the masses to argue about things, figuring
out things to get rid of their restrictions on freedom.
Word Count: 182
5. Longinus, On the Sublime. Translated by G. M. A. Grube.
Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company Inc., 1991:
Sections II
Longinus holds a dissenting position on the
question of whether any art can teach sublimity in
writing. The general view suggests that there is mere
delusion in attempting to reduce sublime to technical
rules. It says: “The Sublime is born in a man, and not to
be acquired by instruction.”26 It is the vigorous product of
nature which will be weakened when robbed their flesh
and blood by frigid technicalities. Longinus gives counter
arguments that nature although detesting all restraint is
reluctant to show its utterly wayward and reckless.
Virtually all principles are derived from nature and have
been practiced and experienced in the province of the
scientific method.27 Longinus went further concerns
about the danger of having great passion without control
of reason. Finally, he has come into a conclusion that
could be applied to architecture: that a creator can only
learn from art when he is to abandon himself to the
25
Ibid., 2
Longinus, On the Sublime (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing
Company Inc., 1991), Section II
27
Ibid.
26
direction of his genius. He seems to suggest that we will
only learn from ruled directions while giving up on our
waywardness.
Word Count: 187
6. Burke, Edmund. A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin
of our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful. London: R & J
Dodsley, 1757. Part I Section VII, Of the Sublime;
Section III, Obscurity; Section IV, Of the Difference
between Clearness and Obscurity with Regard to the
Passions.
Burke has suggested that sublime is delightful
due to our passion for self-preservation.28 On the
difference between clearness and obscurity concerning
the passions, Burke points out that one is to make an idea
clear, and another affecting the imagination. He suggests
that the most lively and spirited description would give
rise a very obscure and imperfect idea of an object. It is in
the creator’s discretion to raise the degree of emotion.
He argues that in fact, a great clearness helps but do little
on the passions as it is the enemy to all enthusiasms.29 He
tends to support that obscurity has a more general and
powerful dominion over passions, and that obscure
28
Edmund Burke, A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of our
Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful (London: R & J Dodsley, 1757).
Part I Section VII, “Of the Sublime”, 14
29
Burke, Part 2 Section IV, “the Difference between Clearness and
Obscurity with Regard to the Passions”, 46
should be more affecting than the clear.30 Applying his
theory that the obscure of what is unpredictable perhaps
could create the most affecting passion.
Word Count: 196
7. Agamben, Giorgio. “The Messiah and the Sovereign” in
Potentialities: Collective Essay in Philosophy, edited by
Daniel Heller-Roazen. California: Stanford University
Press, 1999: 160
As to the relation between imagination and rule,
Agamben cited Warburg’s teaching stating that a theory
of knowledge is in truth simply disguised metaphysics. It
once again supports the view given by Horkheimer, Max,
and Theodor, that enlightenment is deception.31
On potentiality, Agamben thinks that the concept
of potentiality has never ceased to function in life and
humanity. He cites the second book of Aristotle’s De
anima, suggesting that in the absence of external objects,
the senses do not give any sensation, because that
sensibility is not actual but only potential.32 Having a
potential could mean, however, the existence of a
privation. Aristotle’s understanding of potential is the
potential for someone to not bring his/her knowledge
Burke, Part 2 Section V, “the Same Subject Continued”, 47
Giorgio Agamben, “Warburg and the Nameless Science”, 102
32
Giorgio Agamben, “On Potentiality”, 178
30
31
into actuality through not making a work, instead of in a
genetic sense the potential to learn. The counterargument of Aristotle’s theory carried out by Megarians is
that all potentiality exists only in actuality.33 Agamben
gives the conclusion that potentiality conserves itself and
saves itself in actuality.34 These discussions prompt the
thinking, whether individual potential can be represented
and carried out by technologies.
Word Count: 197
8. Deleuze, Gilles. “The Actual and the Virtual” in
Dialogues II. Translated by Eliot Ross Albert. London:
Continuum, 2002: 148-152.
Deleuze introduces that all theories are
composed of actual and virtual elements, and purely
actual object never exists. In his theory, every actual is
associated with virtual images.35 He has described actual
and virtual into an atom like relationship, the ‘nucleus’ is
the actual object, and the ‘electrons’ are the circles of
virtual images. Virtuals is subject to uncertainty or
indetermination, and it can react upon actual objects,
thus, the actual object itself becomes virtual. The
continuum of virtual images is fragmented, and the
spatium cut up according to whether the temporal
decompositions are regular or irregular. Deleuze gives the
conclusion that there are two ways of the two interact,
one is the actual refers to the virtuals where the virtual is
actualized; another is that the actual refers to the virtual
as its own virtual, where virtual crystallizes with the
33
Ibid., 180
Ibid., 184
35
Gilles Deleuze, “The Actual and the Virtual” in Dialogues II,
trans. Eliot Ross Albert (London: Continuum, 2002), 148
34
actual.36 Pure virtual no longer needs to actualize itself,
because they are indistinguishable.37 Seemingly, man’s
intangible thoughts do not need to actualize itself either,
based on its indivisible nature with rules already exists.
Word Count: 198
36
37
Ibid., 152.
Ibid., 151