We hope to return to the fundamental material nature of what we do… Architecture is essentially all the immaterial processes of society solidified in physical form.
BJARKE INGELS, Materialist Manifesto for Domus 2025
Introduction
Different interpretations are possible after the quotation above, made by the talented Danish architect Bjarke Ingels, on the occasion of the presentation of his ‘materialist manifesto’, as the guest editor for Domus 2025:[1] architecture, which is material, is essentially the product of the immaterial. Ultimately, this means that the phenomenon of architecture is, at the same time, material and immaterial, a fact well-known to architects. This article explores the concepts of ‘matter’ and ‘materialism’ in relation to ‘reality’, ‘realism’, and ‘new realism,’ with the goal of integrating material and immaterial aspects of reality, including architecture, which is an important part of reality. Concerning Ingels’ direction, the first four issues of the magazine dedicated to stone, earth, concrete, and metal, and the forthcoming issues focused on glass, wood, fabric, plastic, plant, re-source, and digital, are an unambiguous statement about the material side of architecture, with the possible exception of the abstract information underlying the digital (realm).
Regardless of interpretations, I see what Bjarke Ingels means: years ago, in the paper ‘From Space to Place: A Necessary Paradigm Shift in Architecture as a Way to Handle the Increasing Complexity and Connectivity of Real World Systems’, I expressed a similar desire — the hope to return to the fundamental material nature of what we do — speaking about a shift from space to place in architecture, where I viewed space as a more abstract concept compared to the more concrete and material concept of place. Therefore, for me, the key to a change of mindset was not ‘matter’, as Ingels proposed in the Domus 2025 manifesto, but rather ‘place’, which allows us to focus on the concrete specifics of particular situations and dynamics.
Apart from that difference – matter vs. place – in no way my call or Ingels’ call for a more ‘material’ (pragmatic?) approach to architecture are avant-gardist positions: in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s, at first, as a reaction against architectural modernism, and, later, as a reaction to architectural postmodernism and deconstructivism, architects such as Aldo van Eyck, Herman Herzberger, Giancarlo De Carlo or Christopher Alexander, just to name a few architects, and architectural historians and critics such as Christian Norberg-Schulz and Kenneth Frampton, more insistently, convincedly, and with more echoes than others advocated a return to a more pragmatic and direct approach to architectural and urban phenomena and, specifically, to the fundamental material nature of architecture by appealing to the concrete, existential and experiential qualities of places (Norberg-Schulz, van Eyck, and Alexander, especially) and proposing a critical regionalist approach to architecture sympathetic with its material and tectonic tradition (Frampton). Frampton’s position, in particular, was grounded in a sympathy for place and the material aspects of architecture, rather than the abstracting and alienating characteristics of space – whose alienating properties, regardless existential and phenomenological attempts to revive and transform the concept far beyond its purely abstract dimensional and conceptual origin, were considered the cause for the loss of place according to both Norberg-Schulz and Frampton (I totally agree with them).[2]
Circumstances have changed, and, a few decades later, I believe Ingels would agree with me that the current call to return to the fundamental material nature of our work as architects is driven by two significant events that have transformed the common feeling of society and architecture in recent decades: first, a reaction to the rise and widespread adoption of information technology (a de-materialized realm), including CAD systems and Artificial Intelligence in design; and second, the even more profound environmental concerns (impactful on the conscience of people and the dynamics of the Planet Earth), which can be summarized as the concept of sustainable development, a collective socio-economic phenomenon that is reshaping humanity’s relationship with nature from multiple perspectives.[3] It is those two major events or forces that require a reformulation of the fundamental principles of design professions, and their different perception from past experiences and interpretations. To what extent do ‘materialism’ and ‘realism/new realism’ provide suitable frameworks for understanding the significant structural changes affecting design disciplines, particularly architecture? This article explores ‘materialism’ in general, as well as my proposal for a ‘new realism’ to see alternative approaches to the apparent dualism between nature and culture that underlies our current discussion and is reshaping the boundaries of design practices in the Anthropocene era.
the apparent dualism between nature and culture is the grounding territory of the current discussion
1. Words: ‘Materialism’ and ‘New Realism’
Can common-sense terminology provide a sufficient foundation for rigorous theorization in any field of human knowledge? I believe the appeal to linguistic and philosophical analysis can be helpful in both precision and extension of thinking, allowing us to focus on aspects that may escape common-sense analyses and terminology. To begin with, we need to provide an explanatory framework for the terms we are using – ‘materialism’ and ‘realism’ (and the declination I propose as ‘new realism’). These -isms immediately lead us to consider the meanings of ‘matter’ and ‘reality’ (and to the attribute ‘new’: ‘new’ respect to what?). All of these terms inevitably engage with traditional philosophical debates, from which their primary meanings emerged or were elucidated, so that their specific philosophical sense sometimes converges with common sense.[4] I will attempt to explore two key questions: firstly, 1] to what extent the words we are using – ‘materialism’ and ‘new realism’ – can be traced back to more technical, philosophical meanings, thereby gaining insights into the phenomena we are analyzing in the context of architecture and urbanism; and secondly, 2] how these terms – ‘materialism’ and ‘new realism’ – might influence design practices.
To begin with, I will examine the meanings and etymologies of ‘materialism’ and ‘matter’ as defined by the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) and two prominent philosophical sources: the Oxford Companion to Philosophy (OCP)[5] and an online public resource – the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (SEP). Next, I will reference several articles on this website that discuss the analyses presented by Ivor Leclerc, a former president of the American Society of Metaphysics, and interpreter of Whitehead’s philosophy. Those articles are crucial to our argumentation because, by proposing a return to the Philosophy of Nature and rejecting the dualism between scientific and philosophical thinking, they demonstrate how scientific discoveries over the past century and related philosophical speculation are leading to a new understanding of nature, as well as a new understanding of concepts such as space, place, and matter, among others (Concepts of Place, Space, Matter, and the Nature of Physical Existence, Place, Space, Matter, and a New Conception of Nature and Place, Space, and the Philosophy of Nature). Following the same procedure, I will consider what is meant by ‘reality’, ‘realism’, and ‘new realism’. These findings collectively offer an opportunity to explore how design professions can effectively utilize notions like ‘materialism’, ‘realism’, or ‘new realism’, moving beyond conventional thinking and traditional understanding of spatial and material concepts, which are rooted in classical physics, with all their philosophical drawbacks (such as mechanism, reductivism, and determinism, which are contrary to the organic processuality, systemic complexity, complementarity, and probabilistic character of the new conception of nature inspired by the new sciences and physics).
2. Matter and Materialism
Materialism: Basically, the view that everything is made of matter… Materialists strictly speaking say that only matter exists.
The Oxford Companion to Philosophy
That’s fine… ‘But what is matter?’[6] This is the immediate observation that comes to everybody’s mind. It is clear that we cannot elucidate the meaning of materialism and what materialists sustain if, before that, we do not refer to the meaning of ‘matter’. However, we are immediately confronted with two orders of problems: first, it is difficult to reach a consensus on the meanings of terms like ‘matter’ or ‘materialism’, both within a specific field, such as philosophy, and across different disciplines, including physics, architecture, and the social sciences. Second, our understanding of the same concept often changes over time: this holds for the concepts of space and place (we have already seen that, in many previous articles at RSaP), as well as for the concept of matter or other fundamental concepts that help our analyses of the phenomena of reality (e.g., concepts of time, force, motion, body, mind, etc.). For example, the passage of time and the accumulation of knowledge can also contradict the original meaning of words and concepts, as seen in the case of the term ‘atom’, which, when compared to its original meaning and modern interpretation, is hardly ‘atomic’. Therefore, the sense of a concept may change with the changing of knowledge, and the meanings of words change accordingly. However, this unsteady epistemological ground conditioned by language cannot prevent us from inquiring into the meaning of concepts and associated terminology, especially when it comes to fundamental concepts like ‘matter’, ‘space’, or ‘place’.
In his materialist manifesto, Ingels focuses on architecture in terms of matter, while, here, I am focusing on it in terms of place and space. For me, the two perspectives are complementary and, taken together, exhaustive. Place, space, and matter are primary tools for architects: metaphysical, other than physical and conceptual tools; everything else can be derived from these fundamental ‘tools’.
2.1 Ordinary and Philosophical Meanings
What does the Oxford English Dictionary say about the entries ‘materialism’ and ‘matter’? Concerning ‘matter’, the OED denotes the term as ‘[i] building material, timber, hence stuff of which a thing is made, [ii] subject of discourse or consideration, [iii] also (in philosophical use) “matter” in contradistinction to “mind” or to “form”.’[7]
According to the OED, the common-sense meaning of the term in ‘purely physical applications’ (in the sense of physical/corporeal constituent of an object) is immediately confronted with the philosophical meaning in the Aristotelian/scholastic and Kantian senses. This is what the OED proposes: matter can be understood as the fundamental essence of a thing or being – i.e., prime matter – which requires a specific ‘form’ to become a distinct existent or entity (i.e., a physical object, we usually say), in the Aristotelian sense. The same complementary model is also present in Kant, where ‘matter’ (let’s say ‘the hardware‘) is the element of knowledge supplied by sensation, while ‘form’ (‘the software‘) is determined by the categories of understanding, i.e., mind and its processes.[8] If we limit ourselves to a denotative level of considerations, those ‘philosophical’ senses of matter are in apparent agreement with its common-sense understanding as that which is physical or corporeal (the hardware) in contraposition to what is ‘immaterial or incorporeal substance (such as spirit, soul, mind, etc.)’ or even in contraposition to ‘qualities, actions, or conditions’ (the software).[9] However, a deeper analysis reveals that both philosophical models presented by the OED (Aristotle and Kant) suggest something different: the complementarity of two parts – the physical and the ideal, matter and form – is necessary for an accurate understanding of things or phenomena, that is, for an understanding of reality that is not deceitful or, others would say, which is as less deceitful as possible. In other words, we cannot separate the physical/corporeal/material aspect of reality from the ideal/mental/immaterial aspect. Then, if we stick to the interpretation originated by philosophical speculation, it can be a fallacy (of misplaced concreteness) to abstract matter from form and think we can fully understand worldly phenomena, whether we’re talking about objects (including architecture), happenings, or events. In this case, speaking abstractly about matter (separate from form, much like the physical is separate from the mental, or hardware from software) may lead to a limited understanding of complex phenomena. In architectural terms, to rely on ‘matter’ in order to have an answer about its meaning, I think we’d better ask: what is the matter of architecture? That ‘matter’ – the matter of my question – the OED denoted as [ii] subject of discourse or consideration, which is a metaphorical mode of understanding matter, i.e, an alternative possibility to speak about matter, in addition to its ordinary physical or material sense.
Concerning the elucidation of the word ‘matter’, the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy – (SEP) proposes the same argument briefly advanced by the Oxford English Dictionary, that is, the distinction between matter and form, according to the argument advanced by Aristotle: ‘substance’ (another term for ‘matter’ that has sparked much debate), i.e., that which subtends existence in general or ‘as such’, can only rise to the status of a definite physical entity (either as a particular or a universal being—e.g., a red chair, the idea of the red chair, or even the more abstract idea of ‘chairness’) through its ‘information’, that is, only if matter is given a specific form that allows it to present itself to the world of other objects (as a specific chair—e.g., the red chair) and subjects (the red chair as an object of perception – i.e. the material chair – or even the idea, memory, or hallucination related to the chair—i.e., the immaterial chair).
Image01: Based on an Aristotelian model of explanation, the nature of the ‘physical existent’ (‘physis’) embraces both material and immaterial aspects, actuality and potentiality, at the same time. Matter( )form are complementary parts defining the reality of objects, which includes objects thought by subjects. We tend to divide existence (that which exists – the ‘physical existent’) in parts or moments, for the sake of description, even if reality is one and indivisible, a unique whole: ( ) = O. Its division in parts or moments is just the human attempt to grasp the complexity of reality.
The model I have described is a possible interpretation of the traditional Aristotelian vision of matter within the system of thinking known as ‘hylomorphism’, which posits that ‘every physical object is compound of matter [hyle] and form [eidos or morphe]’.[10] This means that matter alone (i.e., what we ordinarily understand as the ‘physical’) is insufficient for understanding a physical object accurately, unless it is complemented by form. Therefore, following Aristotle’s hypothesis, I argue that any accurate discussion of reality must incorporate both the physical (matter) and the ideal (form) – or the material and the immaterial – as complementary modes of understanding. Consequently, our understanding of matter as ‘prime matter’ or ‘substance’ must necessarily be ambiguous, embracing both material and immaterial dimensions.
Reporting this philosophical argumentation in architectural terms, in the case ‘matter’ refers solely to the ‘physical’, it just means ‘glass’ – or ‘stones’, ‘bricks’, ‘concrete’, ‘metal’, ‘wood’, etc. – while in the case ‘matter’ refers to the physical meeting the ideal (in-formed matter), in addition to ‘glass’, ‘stones’ or ‘bricks’ it also means ‘numbers’ or, to stay in the realm of the immaterial, ‘memories’, ‘dreams’ ‘values’, ‘ideals’, beliefs, ‘stories’, ‘emotions’, ‘symbols’, ‘words’, ‘concepts’ – that is, ‘information’ – etc. Of course, by making a selective choice, we can deliberately focus on a specific aspect of a phenomenon to examine it more closely, such as architecture as a purely material fact, as Ingels intended, although complex phenomena typically require multiple perspectives to be fully understood.
If I should stay at the direct interpretation of Ingels’ words about architecture as the ‘immaterial processes of society solidified in physical form’, which is a traditional form of wisdom every modern architect agrees on (see Architecture and the Will of an Epoch), I interpret that proposition as correspondent to a view sympathetic with an understanding of matter in its most extended meaning of ‘prime matter’, ‘a matter’ which is not separated from ‘form’ (or ‘mind’); therefore, a matter as ‘prime matter’, which is, at the same time, ‘material and immaterial’ given that architecture ‘solidified in physical form’ represents the material side of architectural reality (the reality of architecture made of stones, bricks, concrete, metal, wood, glass, etc.) while ‘the immaterial processes of society’ represent one of the immaterial sides that put a condition on (give form to) architecture, which, apart from glass, stones, bricks, concrete, wood, etc. is also made of, or shaped by will, values, beliefs, ideals, memories, dreams, imagination, geometrical spaces, words, etc. In this context, a couple of consecutive and ‘divergent’ popular texts written by the same author, the English architectural historian Adrian Forty, come to my mind: ‘Words and Buildings: A Vocabulary of modern Architecture’ – which highlights the significance of language in architecture and how words influence our perception and experience of buildings; and ‘Concrete and Culture: A Material History’, where the author gives a practical or material turn to the immaterial processes of society – i.e., culture – to say it with Ingels. Also, on the specific role of language as a material for architecture, in a broader sense, see ‘The Words Between the Spaces: Building and Language’ by Thomas A. Markus and Deborah Cameron.[11] For me, that encompassing view of matter, which includes both aspects of reality, one concrete, the other abstract, also responds quite effectively and appropriately to the matter-based question about architecture we raised above: What is the matter of architecture? Both ‘glass’ and ‘numbers’, as the representative aspects of its concrete and abstract nature, at the same time.
Here, at RSaP, I am proposing to include and expand Ingels’ dictum that architecture is the solidification of ‘the immaterial processes of society’, suggesting that architecture is the all-inclusive and grounding solidification of physicochemical, biological, ecological, sociocultural, and symbolic processes. Regardless of how one interprets Ingels’ use of spatial or material terminology in his ‘materialist manifesto’, my proposal has already been put into practice in many recent architectural projects by Bjarke Ingels Group and other firms at the forefront of the discipline. I believe the pragmatic turn in architecture is largely a consequence of the paradigm shift I pointed at a decade ago in From Space to Place: A Necessary Paradigm Shift in Architecture, which has been significantly influenced by the growing awareness and reception of ecological and environmental issues over the past few decades. Despite that pragmatic turn, which is going in the direction that I talked about a decade ago and accepts many instances inherent in the proposal of the concept of place understood as a system of processes, I find that studies explicitly addressing this turn and outlining procedures for adapting to the new environmental reality are less frequent than they should be. Moreover, it seems to me there is still a lack of complete awareness about what this extension of meaning implies: an ethical or moral expansion that precedes a technical or disciplinary one. Parallel to this, it concerns how we should understand concepts of place, space, and matter (which are the basic tools for architects as well as basic conceptual tools to understand the spatial, material, and spiritual values of the environment) according to the new vision of reality; a vision that should definitely surpass any remnant of outdated anthropocentric views suggesting how to adapt concepts and human activities to the new understanding of nature.
Slideshow 01- Images 02, 03, 04: BIG’s recent production is self-explicatory about the conception of architecture as the solidification of interwoven physicochemical, biological, ecological, socio-cultural, and symbolic processes. For example, these projects (Gelephu Mindfulness City, Gelephu, Bhutan, 2023; The Plus, Magnor, Norway, 2022; Hungarian Natural History Museum, Debrecen, Hungary, 2024) are exemplary cases with respect to the architectural implementation of the concept of place as system of processes which I am elucidating at RSaP (Images from BIG / Bjarke Ingels Group website).
As a brief digression consonant with what I am saying about ethics, I’d like to share the words of Italian Professor Andrea Rinaldo, a recipient of the prestigious Stockholm Water Prize in 2023 (the world’s most prestigious water award given to people and organizations ‘for their extraordinary water-related achievements’),[12] as reported in a popular Italian newspaper. Professor Rinaldo states: ‘We must anticipate radical changes in the traditions of places, in economic and social assets, and leave behind anthropocentric perspectives that only look at Homo Sapiens and their interests.’ [13] This sentiment, which I have expressed on many occasions at RSaP, reflects the spirit of our epoch, although there are still many opposing forces to overcome before it becomes a widely accepted way of thinking, not just among architects.
Here, the issue is not about revisiting what others have said about ‘place’, ‘space’, or ‘matter’ a couple of millennia ago, a century ago, or a few decades ago; rather, it is a question of understanding which vision of reality (i.e., which vision of nature) holds at present, a vision that is shaped by a combination of perspectives, grounded in both scientific theories and philosophical speculation. The extension of architectural knowledge I am advocating, which combines philosophical and physical concepts that challenge classical traditions,[14] is not only an ethical responsibility towards the Planet Earth but also a new fundamental aspect of an architect’s thinking, independent of specific projects or clients’ will. It should be the guiding principle that shapes their approach to designing a new way of dwelling and building, at the beginning of a new era for humanity–the Anthropocene. The ‘new’ vision of material and spatial concepts that I am supporting at RSaP stems from a new understanding of nature, which emerges when we consider the natural and the cultural entangled within the all-encompassing aegis of place; this means that we share the same places with all living beings, and it implies the passage from an anthropocentric to a biocentric vision, or, even more extendedly and inclusively, to a cosmocentric vision of the kind anticipated by Alfred North Whitehead decades ago in his cosmology essay, Process and Reality.[15]
The extension of architectural knowledge I am advocating, which combines philosophical and physical concepts that challenge classical traditions, is not only an ethical responsibility towards the Planet Earth but also a new fundamental aspect of an architect’s thinking, independent of specific projects or clients’ will. It should be the guiding principle that shapes their approach to designing a new way of dwelling and building, at the beginning of a new era for humanity.
To summarize what we have seen so far concerning matter and materialism, in a vague sense – i.e., the ordinary sense – we tend to associate ‘matter’ with the concreteness of objects or things, which differs from the philosophical interpretation of matter (as ‘prime matter’ or ‘substance’), and represents a simplification of the more nuanced philosophical view. That simplification can be an obstacle to the appropriate analysis of phenomena. In this sense (the ‘extended’ understanding of matter beyond its ‘physical sense’), as briefly mentioned earlier, the OED also speaks about ‘matter’ in terms of ‘subject of discourse or consideration’, which substantiates the possibility of understanding linguistic and metaphorical dimensions of matter (i.e., abstract dimensions): e.g., matter as ‘material for expression’, ‘something to say’, ‘material for writing or speech’, ‘the subject of a book or discourse… or study’, ‘an event, circumstance’, ‘an affair or business’, and matter used in various idiomatic expressions – e.g., ‘what is the matter with…?’, ‘a matter of…’, or ‘for the matter…’, etc.[16]
As always when we focus on the meaning of words and their related concepts, we can gain some insight from etymological analyses. What does The Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology (ODEE) say about ‘matter’– about its origin? It says that ‘matter’ comes from the Latin māteria which denoted the ‘hard part of a tree, timber, stuff of which a thing is made… matter in opposition to mind or form (philosophical rendering Greek ὕλη), originally substance of which consists the māter (MOTHER), i.e. the trunk of a tree regarded as producing shoots.’[17] This is a beautiful image: the biological organism, the mother, gives a name to everything that can be created, and, as such, it is made from her, with ‘matter’ becoming the primordial substance for creation, derived from ‘mother’. From the physical/material to the philosophical sense (also in the wider cosmological horizon concerning creation as such), the passage is almost immediate: both the OED and the ODEE take account of that. Again, the opposition of matter vs. mind, or form, is mentioned as a central argument; however, as Aristotle explained, such opposition is nothing other than a mode to complement two parts of the same reality – the real object – indirectly suggesting to us that it can be misleading to abstract parts – either matter or form – from the whole (the real object) and believe such parts are really existent.
Image 05: According to Latin, ‘matter’ – i.e., māteria – originally denoted the substance which the māter (‘mother’ in English) consisted of, i.e. the trunk of a tree regarded as producing shoots. ‘Matter’ was the equivalent term for the Greek ‘hȳlē’, which literally meant ‘wood’, or ‘timber’, and was used by Aristotle, as an analogy, in a specific philosophical sense, to indicate the primary substance – i.e., prime matter –which things are made of, e.g., a violin, a bench, a table… If wood or timber is the prime ‘matter’, we need a ‘form’ for that violin, bench, or table to exist concretely or ‘materially’ according to common-sense terminology. Does everything that exists consist solely of matter, or should matter be complemented by other principles that give matter a definite physical identity, to effectively describe real-world phenomena?
The ambiguity behind a univocal and undisputed meaning of matter and the intimate relationship between the common-sense meaning and the philosophical meaning is immediately exposed by the Oxford Companion to Philosophy with a linguistic joke: ‘What is matter? – Never mind. What is mind? – no matter.’[18] This joke highlights the difficulty of defining what matter really is, unless by directly contrasting senses – as we have already seen. And if we resort to the concept of ‘substance’ to establish the ultimate ontological category of what exists – the OCP continues – things can be even more frustrating since ‘matter’ is not the only candidate: ‘common-sense ontology holds that there are two substances, matter and something else, mind, soul or spirit, the main characteristic of which is that it is non-material!’ [19] We already know that since we hypothesized a circularity between the material and the immaterial when we introduced the concept of ‘prime matter’, by Aristotle, to characterize the category of the existents—objects, things, bodies, elements, etc. (‘prime matter’ is just another name for ‘substance’, i.e., ‘proto hule’ or ‘proto-hupokeimenon’, in Aristotelian terms). Again, we are highlighting a multifaceted direction concerning the meaning of matter and what is fundamental for the category of existence. Sometimes, ‘mind’ or the immaterial (e.g., forms, ideas, spirit, words, etc.), can be seen as even more fundamental (that is, more substantial) than ‘matter’ itself, as Plato (Theory of Ideas or Forms) or Descartes (Cogito ergo sum) maintained. We’d better remind that as an alert. From a different perspective, the OCP says, if we associate our idea of matter to the search of the Pre-Socratics in terms of primary physical substances that constitute all that exists (e.g., water, air, earth, fire) we may arrive at some definite, non-contrasting account of matter as that which is preserved during processes of physical change, which is what Aristotle tried to figure out via the introduction of the concept of ‘prime matter’, a position which – the OCP continues – has some echo in the contemporary scientific view of matter ‘as both what is fundamental in existence and what is conserved in change’, even if, according to contemporary physics, the common image of matter is changing: matter has been ‘dematerialized’ – it is becoming immaterial – replaced by the seemingly more abstract concepts of energy and field.[20] The metaphysical dualism proclaimed by Descartes, which prioritizes mind over matter as the fundamental category of existence, led to the triumph of idealism in modern and contemporary philosophy. As a reaction, the overtly unbalanced power of the mind to the detriment of matter and, therefore, to the detriment of the body (and the related categories of feeling, sensation, or other bodily values such as passion, pleasure, etc.) favoured the resurgence of materialism (in both philosophical and ordinary senses) and the materialist proclaims that ‘everything is made of matter’ or, strictly speaking, ‘that only matter exists’ to oppose idealism.[21] This ‘ideal’ or too ‘abstract’ vision of reality did not leave untouched architecture: this is likely why architects have periodically called for a more material or pragmatic approach to the discipline, particularly since the International Style gained popularity.
But, again, this call of ‘materialists’ evidenced by the OCP creates an aura of ambiguity and confusion about the nature of matter and, more significantly, the composition of reality – i.e., what reality is or is made of (i.e., ‘a matter of’…). In a previously mentioned passage from the OCP, we touched on contemporary physics’ redefinition of matter, which is undergoing a process of ‘dematerialization’, and challenges the traditional understanding of matter as purely ‘physical.’ As I discussed at RSaP on multiple occasions, matter is closely tied to our visions of place and space; in addition to other considerations (philosophical, historical, linguistic, architectural, humanistic, psychological, social, ecological, artistic) it was properly the vision of contemporary physics that, from the very beginning of my research on the spatial nature of reality, conditioned my vision of matter, which I identified as a state of place – a physicochemical state of place, to begin with (see Image 02 in the article Preliminary Notes). What is a physical field (this is the way we should understand ‘matter’ according to contemporary physics) if not a place—a physical state of place, precisely? This holds not only from the perspective of physics but also the perspective of ordinary language and the perspective of philosophy, through the linguistic chain ‘field>chōra>place’ (ordinary language revisited by Plato and Heidegger are the main references, here: chōra was the ancient meaning for a ‘field’, as a concrete territorial expanse, before becoming a metaphysical conception in Plato; and the metaphysical conception of field as chōra is a concept present in Heidegger – as the room necessary for the presence of things – in his existential analysis of spatiality, which has place as its starting point). Here, it’s worth recalling Einstein’s insightful words on the meaning of matter and its connection to the field concept: ‘… what are the physical criterions distinguishing matter and field?… From the relativity theory we know that matter represents vast stores of energy and that energy represents matter… By far the greatest part of energy is concentrated in matter; but the field surrounding the particle also represents energy, though in an incomparably smaller quantity. We could therefore say: Matter is where the concentration of energy is great, field where the concentration of energy is small. But if this is the case, then the difference between matter and field is a quantitative rather than a qualitative one. There is no sense in regarding matter and field as two qualities quite different from each other…There would be no place, in our new physics, for both field and matter, field being the only reality.’[22]
Very important for the argumentation of this article and the core argument of this website, thanks to the original contribution of contemporary physics (and Heidegger’s elucidation of the relationship between things and spatiality) we can see the intimate connection between matter and place–a relationship which can facilitate the change of paradigm of architects from matter to place. In fact, it is my contention that ‘fields’ – and, from the physical perspective, the set of fields that constitute the fabric reality: gravitational, electromagnetic and nuclear fields – can be thought of as another term for ‘place’. Reality, whether viewed at the microscale of subatomic processes, the macroscale of astronomic processes, or the mesoscale of human-scale processes, is ultimately a place. This is what reality is: a place—a place of processes. This allows us to replace the traditional view of reality as the constitution of matter with the understanding that reality is constituted by places – the places where various processes (physicochemical, biological, ecological, sociocultural, and symbolic) occur. As I have mentioned elsewhere, reality, when viewed as a place, has a fractal nature: wherever, at whatever scale we look at, we always find places (‘… the spatial and temporal continuity of processes acting on lands and territories can also be evoked by the image of a fractal: Independently of the scale of intervention – objects, architectures, streets, quarters, cities, regions, nations, continents, or even planets -, the four basic classes of processes are always present…’ in The Identity of a Place: Place-Based Interventions Between Land and Society; see also the article Places Everywhere, which explains in accessible terms a naïve metaphysical introduction to the analysis of places). Places within places, within places…
Image06: Places exhibit a fractal nature, meaning that regardless of the scale at which we examine them, we always find places. However, the specific characteristics of a place change depending on the level of magnification: at microscales, places are defined by physical or physicochemical dynamics and their boundaries, whereas at larger scales, such as the human scale, these dynamics are supplemented by biological, sociocultural, and symbolic dynamics and their respective boundaries. All other dynamics, including psychological, physiological, ecological, architectural, urban, economic, political, technological, literary, etc., are derivative from those primary dynamics (see On the Structure of Reality). At the highest and lowest levels of magnification, the actualized processes recede into a potential state – that is, a place where processes await actualization, a chaotic realm with no order or existence, often referred to as the place of Chaos, sometimes as the place of nothingness. This potential matrix gives rise to the ordered Cosmos, where actualized physicochemical, biological, sociocultural, and symbolic or intellectual processes emerge, resulting in things (inorganic realm), life (organic realm), societies (social realm of plants, animals, and humans), and thought (the exclusive human realm of language and symbols), in order of increasing complexity.[23] According to this perspective, the Archytas’ problem – ‘Is there an edge to the universe?’ – [24] is resolved, and regressio, but also progressio, ad infinitum is resolved as well; also, the quagmire that haunted Aristotle’s definition of ‘topos’ and his interpreters, at the threshold between place and thing – a boundary properly – is resolved. Reality is a place, everything is a place-a place of processes, whether such processes are actualized or not (see Places Everywhere-Everything Is Place).
However, I wouldn’t stop here in exploring alternative and more contemporary visions of matter, beyond classical physics. I will skip references to Heidegger through articles such as Being as Place: Introduction to Metaphysics-Part One, Part Two, and What is a Thing?, (even if the metaphysically-based argumentation drawn from Heidegger may be a contribution to elucidate these questions), and, instead I will focus on the work of the American philosopher Ivor Leclerc, who has developed a holistic, systemic, and organic understanding of nature and the physical existent, drawing on historical concept analysis, philosophical speculation (Whitehead’s philosophy of organism incorporating elements of Aristotle and Leibniz), and contemporary physics. In the articles Concepts of Place, Space, Matter, and the Nature of Physical Existence, and Place, Space, Matter, and a New Conception of Nature we have seen the direct link between the concept of nature and concepts of matter via the Greek term ‘physis’ (literally, the physical existent or the Greek term for the Latin ‘natura’, whence the English nature). Through the relationship nature-matter via the Greek physis, apart from explaining the origin of the direct, modern association between ‘matter’ with that which is ‘physical’ – an attribute that obviously derives from ‘physis’ – we have seen how close and dependent are our visions of nature with respect to our understanding of matter, with each era’s notion of matter corresponding to a particular view of nature. In those articles, by analysing the historical passages from the pre-Socratics and Aristotelian understanding of matter to modern times, we have seen how matter, from the possibility of denoting both concrete and abstract possibilities, both ‘material’ and ‘immaterial’ domains through the complementarity between matter and form (actuality and potentiality), it came to define something conceived as itself substance, atomic, solid, changeless, fully inert, and movable. The ‘new’, modern conception of matter was merely determined by external changes due to motion (loco-motion, motion of material particles from place to place) – i.e., material or corporeal atomism, the notion at the base of the modern, ordinary conception of matter. That conception posits that only ultimate elements, such as atoms or particles, are real, while aggregates are mere phenomenal entities whose behavior can be explained by (or is reducible to – hence the term ‘reductivism’) the mere motion, hence change of position, of their constituent elements. This classical, traditional, physicalist, mechanic, and reductionist vision of nature (mechanic and reductionist in the sense that everything is reducible to the locomotion of elements explained according to physical/mechanic laws of motion) is a vision that also implies a physicalist notion of space, and of place as part of space, which are scientifically and philosophically outdated notions, even if many disciplines are still structured on such spatial notions derived by classical tradition (e.g., design or artistic disciplines including architecture, the social sciences).[25] This classical vision of matter and nature (and of related concepts of space, place, and time) is not useful anymore to give an appropriate explicative framework for the systemic complexity of today’s world. In contrast to traditional views, together with Leclerc, we have seen the possibility for different, scientifically updated and philosophically consistent visions of nature which consider matter not just as ‘concrete’ or physical in the sense of material or corporeal atomism, but as having the potential for internal change, becoming, and potentiality, as described in contemporary physics by Heisenberg, and recognizing compound objects as ‘physical entities’, i.e., ultimate realities and not merely phenomenal entities.[26] These instances represent a new understanding of matter that goes beyond the ordinary ‘physical’ sense, incorporating ‘abstract’ or ‘potential’ and ‘dynamical’ aspects, which were previously explored in the philosophies of Aristotle, Leibniz, and Whitehead, including concepts such as potentiality, change, becoming, and the organic or systemic relationship between parts and the whole – these are all new characters concerning the new understanding of matter and nature that complement the old vision.
What does it mean to speak in terms of ‘rethinking’ concepts? The current epoch’s enterprise involves ‘rethinking’ concepts ‘against’ classical tradition—a tradition that entails a mechanic, reductionist and deterministic vision of nature to which we must oppose (in the sense of integrating as a complementary view, and not in the sense of rejecting what we have acquired so far through classical physics)[27] a holistic, organic, systemic, antireductionist and probabilistic vision of nature that reintroduces the realm of potentiality and becoming to complement actuality with potentiality, matter with form, place with space, the physical with the ideal, the concrete with the abstract, being with becoming, particle and wave… ‘With’ and ‘and’ as the antidote to dualisms, so that we can have a new vision of matter and nature that is able to recompose, into a more unitary framework, the dualisms that haunted the human understanding of nature in the modern epoch. As Leclerc suggested, we should strive to integrate diverse perspectives into a new philosophy of nature, allowing for a more comprehensive understanding of reality, where both philosophy and physics are essential and complementary, providing a solid foundation for other disciplines. These new modes of understanding concepts and nature transcend analyses from fixed or univocal points of view, which is particularly relevant in architecture, a discipline that synthesizes multiple worlds into a single object: the building. This fact calls for a transdisciplinary approach to knowledge as an important asset for contemporary research.
To summarize, Leclerc argues that contemporary physics and philosophical ideas from Aristotle, Leibniz, and Whitehead can help us understand the new concept of matter (and nature, which also entail new conceptions of space and place), which is not just ‘physical’ as classical physics suggested, but rather a more complete entity that includes potentiality, becoming, and compound bodies as true physical existents, with complementary aspects like actuality and potentiality, being and becoming, and concreteness and abstractness becoming the new defining characteristics of nature through matter, thus recovering certain aspects of the Aristotelian vision.[28] This new understanding of matter suggests a paradigm shift in our conception of nature, moving away from a mechanical, deterministic, and reductionist view towards a more organic, systemic, and probabilistic one, irreducible to the parts of a whole (i.e., irreducible to the ultimate particle of physics and their explanation in terms of locomotion). The first, traditional view of nature holds that everything can be reduced to ‘physical matter’ and ultimately to physics, governed by physical laws, which are essentially laws of motion (so, for instance, all scientific disciplines such as chemistry, biology, or medicine are ultimately reducible to classical physics and its laws of motion). The alternative vision of nature disputes this hypothesis, as concepts like complementarity, probability, emergence, complexity, systems, etc. – rooted in contemporary scientific theories such as quantum mechanics, complexity sciences, general system theories, chaos theory, ecology, etc. – depict a distinct horizon that cannot be reduced to classical physical laws.
The contemporary understanding of matter diverges so significantly from the classical tradition that the continued use of the term ‘matter’ is highly questionable, as Leclerc wisely observed. Consistent with this view, which is also the perspective of contemporary physics as observed by Einstein – see note [22], above – I propose thinking about reality in terms of place and processes rather than matter. Based on our expanded understanding of matter, rooted in the original Greek concept of ‘physis’ (derived from the verb ‘phuein’, meaning to grow, generate, or bring forth, and later influencing the Latin ‘natura’ and English ‘nature’, from the verb ‘nascere’, meaning to grow or be born), the significant link between matter and nature is reemphasized, as seen in the origins of traditional Western philosophical thinking. Everything that belongs to nature is ‘matter’ as a physical existent: then, not merely rocks, bricks, concrete, and glass are physical existents (i.e., THINGS); also plants, animals, or even human bodies, that is living organisms or complex bodies, are physical existents (i.e., LIFE); or even more complex forms of aggregations, such as groups, families, flocks, packs, institution, clubs, associations, etc. are also physical existents (i.e., SOCIETY); until we arrive at the most complex and ‘immaterial’ forms of aggregation of the physical existents—all that is derived from the human mind, from its intellectual and psychological agency, such as values, beliefs, numbers, words, concepts, artistic, literary or scientific ideals, etc. (in one word, SYMBOLS). Ultimately, such physical existents are places–the place of processes.
If we report that to architecture, then, the matter of architecture, both in a denotative and connotative sense, is basically represented by the four categories of physical existents as matter or place of processes that we have just listed: according to this perspective, buildings become the complex activity of putting together, layer upon layer, as if they were bricks, THINGS, LIFE, SOCIETY, and SYMBOLS into a meaningful whole irreducible to its parts. Nature, or reality, and architecture as a characterizing phenomenon of it, understood as the interwoven agency of things, life, society, and symbols. From the perspective of architects, that means the synthesis of all processes (physicochemical, biological, socio-cultural, and symbolic) into the conception of building understood as place. This all-embracing conception of place (i.e., place as the systemic emergence of entangled physicochemical, biological, ecological, etc. dynamics) implies the conception of a total environment as the new subject of study for architects.
Image 07: The matter of Architecture: THINGS (i.e. the place of physicochemical processes), LIFE (the place of biological processes), SOCIETY (the place of sociocultural processes), and SYMBOLS (the place of intellectual/symbolic processes). Together, irreducibly to each part taken separately, they constitute the corpus of Architecture as a meaningful whole.
With a more exhaustive understanding of the different meanings of ‘matter’, we can now focus on the various perspectives of ‘materialism’, exploring its meanings in both ordinary language and philosophical sources.
So, if we refer to the Oxford English Dictionary, it immediately exposes the ‘philosophical’ side of the question where materialism is defined as ‘the opinion that nothing exists except matter and its movements and modifications’- a perspective we have just considered which corresponds the ‘atomistic’ or ‘corporeal’ understanding of matter (and therefore of nature) according to the traditional vision of science, back to classical physics and its laws (of motion); in fact, the OED continues, ‘in a more limited sense, [materialism is] the opinion that the phenomena of consciousness and will are wholly due to the operation of material agencies.’[29] Thanks to the previous analysis, it is easy to see the mechanic (first part of the definition) and reductionist (second part of the definition, where everything is reducible to the agencies – i.e. motions – of the ultimate elements) blueprint of man behind the description of nature in materialist sense described by the OED.
However, the OED continues, there are other ‘transferred uses’ of the term ‘materialism’: in a theological sense (as a reproach to views that ‘imply a defective sense of the reality of things purely spiritual’), in the domain of art (‘the tendency to lay stress on the material aspect of the objects represented’), or in the ordinary sense of ‘devotion to material needs or desires, to the neglect of spiritual matters’.[30] Finally, the OED concludes, ‘materialism’ is also ‘the system of material things; the material universe’, proposing all concordant visions deriving from the classical understanding of matter as something concrete, ‘material’ indeed, according to the provisions of classical science/physics.
Of course, concerning the entry ‘materialism,’ we do not gain much insight or fresh information from the Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology given that it is immediate the association between materialism and matter from the Latin ‘materia’,[31] which we have already considered above (see Image 05).
Now, turning to the Oxford Companion to Philosophy – OCP –, much of the information contained in it about ‘materialism’, we have indirectly seen introducing the meaning of ‘matter’. Here, the ‘materialist’ vision is immediately associated with Democritus of Abdera (V century BC), the first true materialist, who believed that the world was composed entirely of atoms ‘tiny, absolutely hard, impenetrable, incompressible, indivisible, and unalterable bits of stuff, which had shape and size but no other properties and scurried around on the void, forming the world as we know it by jostling each other and either rebounding or getting entangled between each other because of their shapes.’[32] Remarkably, this is a vision of matter that still holds, at least in ordinary thinking. However, the new physics, specifically Einstein’s and quantum physics, led to the dismissal of matter as a profitable physical notion: replaced by mass, which is interchangeable with energy, according to the famous formula E=mc2, and associated with the field-notion (‘a distortion of the space’ the OCP says, which is a floppy way to depict the field concept, generating confusion in those, possibly non-physicists, who still rely on physicalist notions of space for their theories). However, the OCP continues, the new vision of matter ‘has had remarkably little overt effect on the various philosophical views that can be dubbed ‘materialism’ [given that] materialist philosophies have tended to substitute for “matter” some notion like “whatever it is that can be studied by the methods of natural science” thus turning materialism into naturalism’. [33]
According to the OCP, part of the debate on materialism and materialist views hinges on the already considered problematic relationship between ‘matter and mind or spirit or consciousness, or the contents of these entities (ideas, etc.)’;[34] if the reality of body is accepted as unproblematic by the materialist, the question of mind or consciousness is not, even if, in the end, materialists say that ‘minds do exist but not as something separate from matter’ and that ‘mental phenomena, like pains or thoughts, are identical with phenomena going on in the brain’, which means that such phenomena can be ultimately reduced to same kind of material exchanges acting in the brains.[35]
The characterizations of matter we have seen so far suggest a distinction between three kinds of realms or worlds —The Oxford Companion to Philosophy continues — some of which are accepted by materialists while others are not; these three ‘realms’ or ‘worlds’ are: [i] the world of material things (atoms, rocks, glass, trees, etc.); [ii] the world of psychological things (thoughts, feelings, desires, etc. and the minds that produce these); [iii] the world of abstract things (number, classes, categories, truth, sometimes values, etc.). ‘Materialists —the OCP concludes— strictly speaking, say that only matter exists’, that is, only [i] exists, denying the existence of [ii], and, in a few cases, admitting a moderate realism of [iii].[36] These prevailing accounts of materialism are structured on material atomism, i.e., the conception of nature/matter derived from ancient atomism, translated into modern thinking by classical physics, and ultimately diffused into/accepted by ordinary thinking.
Finally, let’s see what the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (SEP) says about ‘materialism’. Actually, ‘materialism’ is not exactly the entry with which the SEP presents the argument: instead, ‘physicalism’ is the term they use, the difference being in that one term, materialism, is best used in connection with metaphysical/philosophical argumentations, the other, physicalism, is more directed to physical explanations. Apart from that, the two terms can be used interchangeably – the SEP says – given that ‘physicalism’ is related to ‘physics’ as well as to ‘physical object’ which is very closely connected with ‘material object’ via ‘matter’ so that we arrive at the other side of the same coin–‘materialism’. A brief historical explanation gives reason to that difference after the introduction of the more recent term, physicalism, in the ‘30s, in the Vienna Circle of positivists – notoriously allergic to the domain of metaphysics and whatever could be related to it, such as the term ‘materialism’… A difference that quickly faded away after the fall into disgrace of the positivist philosophy, that’s why the two terms are now used interchangeably. The term ‘materialism’ (or ‘physicalism’) – we have already seen it – is as old as Democritus; it was revived in the early modern period before its success was decreed by the philosophies and scientific theories of Hobbes, Gassendi and Newton, and, after them in the XVIII century when everything – human beings included – could be seen as some ‘sort of machine’ –the quintessence, I am saying, of the materialist vision. The same ‘dialectical materialism’ of Marx and Engels, in the XIX century, was developed on the background of a materialist understanding of the environment. Still, in the XX century – the SEP continues – materialist theories are alive. Concerning the fundamental meaning of ‘materialism’ or ‘physicalism’ there are no relevant things to add with respect to what we already know (‘… physicalists hold that the real world consists of nothing but matter and energy, and that objects have only physical properties such as spatio-temporal position, mass size, shape, motion, hardness, electrical charge, magnetism and gravity. Exceptions are sometimes made for abstract entities such as numbers, sets, and propositions’) apart from the fact that technical discussions are raised to show positions in favour and against materialism/physicalism. With the help of the OCP, we can summarize these positions in the following way: principal arguments in favour of materialism/physicalism come from the successes of physics, which contributed to explaining a diverse range of phenomena in terms of a few fundamental physical laws (from chemistry to biology, including certain neurophysiological phenomena); [37] arguments against it – the OCP says – comes from theological observations, epistemology (the list of idealists, from Berkeley to Hume, from Kant to Hegel and Mill, according to whom everything, in the end, passes through the mental, is long), and psychology, back to Cartesian dualism; according to those critics we are ‘far from specifying neural states perfectly correlated with even one mental state.’ [38]
3. Reality, Realism, and New Realism
Given that I am proposing ‘realism’ or, better, ‘new realism’ as an appropriate contextual framework for design professions, I will begin by clarifying my perspective on ‘reality’, ‘realism’, and ‘new realism’, before comparing it to the same sources we used to understand the ordinary and philosophical meanings of ‘matter’ and ‘materialism’. I prefer to start presenting my own view on ‘realism’ since – it is my typical approach to things – at first, I always try to rely on personal or intuitive logic and naïve feelings dictated by the personal observation of phenomena; then, based on that, as the result of observation and basic speculation (i.e., ‘my’ point of view), I look for correspondences with existing sources to identify similarities, continuities, and differences, which helps me to refine or reconsider my initial position. This means that I didn’t primarily rely on what others had said about ‘realism’ or ‘new realism’ to understand their meanings; instead, I used their work to test and refine my initial thoughts.
When I first started naively reasoning about metaphysical questions of space and place (Places Everywhere-Everything Is Place), I naturally wondered what was ‘real’: space or place? Maybe, both of them? How could I discern that? To me, initially, ‘real’ referred to the material, concrete, and actual aspects of the physical world in the ordinary sense that we have just seen. The ordinary understanding of things is the only starting point available to us for any kind of theorization, as we are always shaped by our traditional culture and the traditional way of transmitting knowledge through family and school. The ‘real’ corresponding to the ‘physical’–a strict materialist position, which asserts that only matter exists and, therefore, only matter is real. I soon realized that maintaining the position ‘only matter exists’ was too one-sided for me, as it would mean downplaying the significance of many non-material aspects of our lives, such as feelings, ideas, beliefs, fantasies, creativity, projects, memories, and other abstractions in just one word. At that time, I was unaware of the subtle possibility that minds and their activities – such as ideas, beliefs, memories, and hallucinations – could be reduced to the movements of material particles or forces, ultimately governed by matter and physicochemical laws. When I later discovered that possibility, I had enough information to understand its philosophical and physical sense, and ultimately reject it. I began to explore the correlation between the two moments – concretion and abstraction, matter and mind, actuality and potentiality, the physical and the ideal – rather than seeing them as mutually exclusive, where one part (mind) is reduced to mere physicochemical laws or the other (matter) is considered inaccessible, as everything is filtered through the mind. For example, the will to raise my arm – that is, ‘will’ as something immaterial, mere potentiality – I can transform into my raised arm – a fact, a material fact, something in the act, i.e., actuality (to reduce ‘will’ to mere biochemical exchanges within brain and body, as traditional materialism suggests, neglects a crucial aspect of reality for me, other than misplacing effects – a biochemical concatenation of physical processes – with causes–my will, which is something different from neuronal states and processes). After all, as architects, we’re familiar with that horizon since our profession is inherently built on the correspondence between two very different moments: words and matter, abstraction and concretion, potentiality (‘everything’ is possible before starting a project) and actuality (everything turns into just one thing, project or building; borrowing the term from quantum physics, we could speak of architectural ‘decoherence’ in the passage from potentiality/ideas to actuality/realized projects or buildings). Extending such basic considerations to architecture, social feelings, and today’s environmental issues, if we want to change or give a different direction to the current state of the world (taking into consideration arguments such as the depletion of natural resources, pollution, climate change, decreasing biodiversity, etc. – i.e., a state of fact, material and actual) we can act so that our ideas, ideals, beliefs, potential projects, etc. are put into practice: a potential state represented by immaterial things (ideas, beliefs, values, potential projects, etc.) can be set into play transforming the actual state of fact, thereby transforming reality. Then, from a certain point of view, ideas, or architectural geometries created by the mind of designers, architects or engineers could be considered even more ‘material’, or fundamental, than matter itself without the necessity to reduce them to mere biochemical exchanges at neuronal levels… A true reality because they can be a real motor for change (later, I discovered that this is fundamentally a platonic view – i.e., platonic realism). A circularity between matter and mind, between actual and potential, concrete and abstract, physical and mathematical… where one brings forth the other: that is what I intuitively understood as reality, what is real. I began to understand this complementary state of reality as a whole composed of parts, and I began to envision this state of the world – this state of reality, properly – by means of the symbolism “( )” where the two apparently opposing brackets, in reality, work together to define a whole, a unique, single state: that is the state of reality, properly. Particle( )Wave, for contemporary physicists. Actual( )Potential, and Being( )Becoming, for philosophers. Place( )Space, for architects.
That vision of reality seemed to me a mode to bypass the dualisms that haunted modern thinking since Descartes. Rather than choosing between ‘either… or’, I opted for ‘both… and’, although I still needed to figure out how to make that mutual relationship work. Anyway, I started noticing inconsistencies in pure forms of idealism and materialism, despite being aware that intermediate positions existed, complicating the issue significantly. Given that architects typically use hammers and pickaxes, not scalpels, which are better suited for doctors and philosophers, I was content with my discovery: an intuitive form of realism that acknowledges both concrete and abstract things as real seemed a better starting point than idealism and materialism, as it avoids the extremism inherent in both. I found it naive to reduce the complex, varied, and opposing phenomena of the world – such as glass and numbers, feeling and thinking – to mutually exclusive ideal or material existents, or forms of knowledge. So, while reading Heidegger’s account of ‘the thing’ (see the article What is a Thing?) I was pleased to discover that Kant already took a clear position on the argument of ‘reality’ – a position which I found very consistent with what I was thinking about it; a position that elucidated the question of reality, actuality, and the meaning of reality itself. I will extensively quote a couple of passages from Heidegger’s What is a Thing? to explain this crucial point.
Talking about the Kantian principles of pure understanding in The Critique, Heidegger says: ‘We have to drop the currently familiar meaning of “reality” in the sense of actuality in order to understand what Kant means by the real in appearance. This meaning of “reality” current today, moreover, corresponds neither with the original meaning of the word nor the initial use of the term in medieval and modern philosophy up to Kant. Instead, the present use has presumably come about through a failure to understand and through a misunderstanding of Kant’s usage. Reality comes from [the Latin term] “realitas”. “Realis” is what belongs to “res”. That means a something [‘res’ is the Latin term for ‘thing’]. That is real which belongs to something, what belongs to the what-content of a thing, e.g., to what constitutes a house or tree, what belongs to the essence of something, to the “essentia”. […] All such is real, belongs to the res, to the something “natural body”, regardless of whether the body actually exists or not. […] Only Kant first demonstrated that actuality, being present-at-hand, is not a real predicate of a thing; that is, a hundred possible dollars do not in the least differ from a hundred real dollars according to their reality. It is the same, one hundred dollars, the same what (Was), res, whether possible or actual […] reality does not mean actuality. […] “Reality” as thinghood answers the question of what a thing is, and not whether it exists. […] the real in the appearance, in Kant’s sense, is not what is actually in the appearance as contrasted with what is inactual in it and could be mere semblance and illusion. The real is that which must be given at all, so that something can be decided with respect to its actuality or inactuality. The real is the pure and first necessary “what” as such. Without the real, the something, the object is not only inactual, it is nothing at all, i.e., without a what, according to which it can determine itself as this or that. In this “what”, the real, the object qualifies itself as encountering thus and so. The real is the first “quale” of the object.’[39]
We have to drop the currently familiar meaning of “reality” in the sense of actuality … Reality comes from “realitas”. “Realis” is what belongs to “res”. That means a something. That is real which belongs to something, what belongs to the what-content of a thing…“Reality” as thinghood answers the question of what a thing is, and not whether it exists.
MARTIN HEIDEGGER, What Is a Thing?
To summarize, ‘reality’ – the real – refers to the essence of a thing, not its physical presence or absence; and since the world comprises both concrete things, like the glass, and abstract things, like numbers or information, both are considered real. Furthermore, I argue that since I experience emotions like joy and sadness, they must be real, even if they aren’t physical or material. These emotions influence my behavior, which in turn affects the physical world (for instance, I believe Mr. X and Mrs. Y are unfit for that institutional role, and I won’t vote for them – my vote is a tangible outcome driven by my intangible beliefs, values, and ideals that have developed over time). This is the way I understand what reality is – i.e. the pertinence to the thing, to its essence, the what of the thing, independently of the fact that the thing is present-at-hand (the red chair as I see it now) or ‘merely’ present in my mind (the idea of the red chair, my memory of it, or the idea of chairness as such) – and, consequently, what realism is and entails.
Annotation: in my view, being a realist does not imply that the concrete and abstract aspects of reality hold equal roles or importance. My understanding of realism is based on recognizing and respecting differences rather than erasing them. By recognizing differences as interconnected opposing parts, we can reject dualisms and view reality as a unified whole, comprising diverse components, thus closing the circle of reality. This is the sense of the symbolic expression I often use: ‘( )’, which equals to ‘O’, defining a whole or unit made of opposing/complementary parts. From a realist perspective, I acknowledge both the primacy of natural facts, which are independent of human agency or thought and precede them (a position close to materialism), and the primary role of minds in shaping reality through abstract determinations (a position close to idealism) after they appropriate natural facts. In a certain sense, both moments are primary, as the resulting reality from their encounter is always a new, continuously actualized reality. This is for me the fundamental difference between realism, on the one hand, and idealism and materialism, on the other. Reality continually renovates and recreates after the encounter between matter and mind and no one part can be reduced to the other, as idealism or materialism say from diametrically opposed positions. It seems to me this position is very close to what Whitehead defined as ‘reformed subjectivist principle’ in Process and Reality (this explains my closeness to Whitehead’s processual philosophy in determining my understanding of reality as a whole: I call this whole ‘place’—a place of processes), a position which also has an echo in the scientific work of neuroscientists Maturana and Varela.[40]
Coming to architecture and design disciplines, concerning the realism of place and space, they are complementary entities: they are both real according to the connotation of reality we are describing. For architects, place and space are both crucial, yet distinct, entities that must be recognized for their unique roles: place comes first, as it is the fundamental principle of existence, whereas space, a product of human thought and part of nature, is not secondary, as it enables humans to creatively modify places. There is a circular relationship between the two spatial/placial moments of understanding: place( )space. It is crucial for architects, and not only for them, to recognize the distinct realities of these concepts, one concrete and the other abstract, as well as their specific roles, so that we can effectively harness their complementary nature and grasp reality in its full range from concrete to abstract. If we fail to distinguish and connect these concepts, it will undermine our understanding of reality itself; for instance, we should perceive the streets and squares of a city as spatially extended places, rather than as spaces within a place or, worse, as places in space, which would imply they are both concrete entities, whilst they aren’t. At RSaP, I have argued that the design professions’ inadequacy in addressing environmental issues, until recently, stems from a misguided understanding of spatial dynamics in both the environment and the professions: architects often view space as a physical objects rather than an abstract concept,[41] which has led to a lack of attention to place, confusion between space and place, and a failure to develop holistic theories of place. This traditional approach, rooted in classical physics and concepts, has resulted in fragmented understanding of environmental reality, hindering a systemic grasp of environmental dynamics and the design professions. Ultimately, I believe that the confusion between place and space, both seen as physical entities, leads to two mistaken assumptions: firstly, that spaces are within places, which is a common misinterpretation often fueled by too physicalist readings of Heidegger’s concept of spatiality (this is a debated question that deserves a specific article but should alert us every time we read or hear of ‘experienced spaces’, ‘lived spaces’, ‘perception of space’, and the likes: what we really experience, live, or perceive are not spaces, which do not exist as physical entities, but are environments, ambiences, atmospheres, things which are all concrete conditions of a place); and secondly, that places are within space, a traditional physicalist view determined by classical physics. This confusion makes it impossible to recognize the inherent circularity – concrete( )abstract – of spatial/placial concepts in nature, which is essential for analyzing problems from multiple perspectives and finding solutions, particularly in environmental issues. In this sense, a transdisciplinary approach to questions of space and place can clarify the distinction between space and place by recognizing their unique but complementary realities, functions, and roles, providing a suitable spatial/placial framework for design disciplines and a meaningful interpretation of spatiality in the context of environmental issues. Place and space are both important notions for the activity of architects, but we cannot mistake the territory (place), which is concrete and responds to laws ranging from natural to cultural, for its map (space), which is an abstract entity and responds to mere symbolic (representational) laws, even if both territory and map are real (existents): by focusing too much on refining the map believing it can substitute the territory, we have neglected to study the complex, intertwined dynamics of the territory and its meaning, including the natural and cultural environment. Similarly, gamers cannot confuse the experience of playing pinball on a physical cabinet, where iron balls respond to real physical laws, with the experience of playing the same game on virtual machines or devices, such as tablets, mobile phones, PCs, or VR headsets, which simulate physical laws in a digital environment. We cannot confuse space, which is an abstract, conceptual notion, with a supposedly physical entity called ‘space’, or ‘absolute space’, existing out there (‘space’ is a concept rejected by contemporary physics). The entity that exists out there is always a place or a collection of things in a place, and we use the noun ‘space’ to represent its extension or the system of relationships between things in that place (a Leibnizian conception).
Image 08: Making the Invisible Visible. In this highly engaging, immersive installation by the American artist Lachlan Turczan what is made visible, actually, is light and suspended particles (mist), not space, as usual narratives and spatial descriptions say (see the article The Place of the Invisible and the Intangible).
In various articles at RSaP, I stressed the importance of architecture and design disciplines conforming to a new realism. After clarifying my position on ‘realism’, which encompasses both tangible and intangible aspects, such as glass and numbers (see the featured image of this article), I came to understand the term ‘new realism’ through a convergence of distinct yet related circumstances, rather than by adopting others’ theories (as we will explore in the next section, there are various forms of ‘new realism’). The first reason for the adoption of the attribute ‘new’ is our awareness that we are living in a completely different time compared to the past, an era that is shaping a new cosmology, which is a new understanding of nature and its phenomena through new physical laws and philosophical concepts. These concepts extend our knowledge beyond physics, enabling us to better comprehend the complexity of today’s world and its interconnected dynamics, spanning from physicochemical to biological, ecological, social, economic, cultural, intellectual, and symbolic.[42] This new condition leads us to a second crucial consideration: advances in physics, science, technology, and new philosophical theories and disciplines, such as system sciences, process philosophy, deep ecology, and ecology, have enabled us to carefully analyze and often realize the profound interconnectedness of nature and human activities, revealing that we have put the natural environment at risk, causing geological-scale changes in an incredibly short time. This exceptional circumstance, driven by various social parties and a shared desire to reevaluate humanity’s relationship with nature, led to the proposal of a new name – the Anthropocene – to signify our current time as a distinct geological epoch, marking a discontinuity with past epochs (although the International Union of Geological Sciences has recently rejected the proposal, it does not diminish the novelty of what the term represents).[43] This new awareness concerning the human-environment interaction is the one that gave input to a new phase of social and economic development since the end of the ‘80s, characterized by what is known as sustainable development; although initially biased towards development over sustainability, this approach has led to positive environmental actions and policies globally, ultimately shifting the perspectives of many political, social, and cultural agents on nature. Such new perspectives, inevitably include design professions and the building sector, in general. The implication of the aforementioned events is that a new ethics is needed to adapt human behavior and agency to the new understanding of nature, with its interconnected systemic and processual dynamics at every level of existence. This shift requires a transition from an anthropocentric to a biocentric perspective, where all forms of life deserve equal care and respect, or even further, to a cosmocentric perspective, where the focus is equally distributed between caring for the physical environment and its inhabitants, ultimately redefining a new environmental cosmology. The new ethics will be necessary to confront and manage responsibly the present and future technological advancements of the new Information Age, which can be seen as the dematerialized continuation of past material ages – the Stone Age, Bronze Age, and Iron Age – characterized by the manipulation of matter, as affirmed by Ingels in the ‘materialist manifesto.’ This time, we face a new challenge: learning to manipulate ‘immaterial matter.’
So much for general considerations on the meaning and the necessity to introduce the attribute ‘new’ with respect to realism. From this perspective, the ‘new realism’ I refer to differs from other forms of ‘realisms’ or ‘new realisms’ found in past or recent philosophies, or even artistic movements. It is more closely tied to the feelings and discoveries of a new era, a distinct historical moment that sets it apart from previous ones, rather than a specific new philosophical doctrine.
In this context, two significant circumstances led me to reexamine the phenomenon of architecture and design professions from a new perspective, grounded in a new realism – i.e., the recognition that we are living in a new reality, a break from the past.[44] These circumstances involve my proposal, outlined on this website, to understand [A] architecture as a discipline of place rather than (or before than) space, which enables a new understanding of nature and the development of a new ethics. This perspective posits that place is the physical entity or matter (i.e., an extended field of energy-as-matter, we have learned from contemporary physics and from Heidegger, through his explicit pronouncement that ‘things are places’), whereas space is an abstract, conceptual entity that facilitates our comprehension of concrete places and things. This is different from what has been said in architectural circles since the middle of the XIX century, where space has been taken as the most representative concept for architecture (see the Appendix of the article On the Ambiguous Language of Space); from here the necessity of a shift of perspective from space to place in architecture as discussed in the paper From Space to Place: A Necessary Paradigm Shift for Architecture. Alongside this shift, the proposal regards [B] a revised understanding of place as a system of processes, which will guide the comprehensive transformation and adaptation of architecture and design professions to the new reality of the Anthropocene epoch – hence the call for a new realism for architects. This definition of place as a system of processes integrates converging scientific and philosophical perspectives on nature and a new ethics, providing a foundation for spatial/placial considerations in other sectors or disciplines.
Considering these factors, I have previously discussed the need for architecture and design professionals to confront the new reality in the following sense: ‘the concept of place — in the broadest sense that I’m arguing for at RSaP — surpasses the traditional geographical and sociocultural dimensions alone, which are usually attributed to by architects, to include physicochemical, biological (hence, ecological), and intellectual or symbolic dimensions. Within this overarching compass of place, which comprises space as a symbolic dimension, nothing is left out: reality is place. Therefore, if architecture aims at being sensitive to places, lands or territories, it cannot avoid direct and conscious confrontation with all the processes and forces that are constitutive of reality as place [physicochemical, biological and ecological, sociocultural and symbolic processes]. This is a new realism for architecture, at the beginning of a new epoch’ (see the article What Is Architecture?). Similarly, by proposing architects a transdisciplinary approach to design professions to better adapt to the complexities of the present epoch with a view into the future, I was remarking the following condition: ‘… Transdisciplinarity would imply the emergence of architecture and urbanism as disciplines that go beyond their traditional limits to embrace the “total environment” as their new, common territory – the ultimate place of processes where nature and culture are co-determined. All design professions that intervene on the physical environment should be considered place-based professions: they should understand place as the evolutionary dynamics of interplaying physicochemical, biological, ecological, sociocultural and symbolic processes, all at once. This is “a new realism” for the disciplines of design: it does not mean that they will lose their specificities and techniques; it just means that design practitioners should develop non-hierarchical visions between professions and modalities of collaboration to envisage an even more unified and synthetic vision of reality as “total environment”, which is seamlessly conditioned by natural and cultural dynamics’ (see A Theory of Place).
It is such a global vision of reality and nature, which requires an epistemological paradigm shift in design professions,[45] that should guide the need to expand architecture’s boundaries, integrate design professions more deeply, and foster a more profound and primal ethical critique to overcome any remaining anthropocentric views (i.e., reevaluating humanity’s role with+in nature). I sometimes refer to place as a ‘total environment’, a unique, all-encompassing territory of reality where natural and cultural dynamics converge. This territory should be the primary focus of design professions, including interior and industrial designers, architects, landscape architects, urban planners, and engineers, who must integrate their skills to a higher degree than in the past to effectively address current and future environmental, social, and economic challenges. To facilitate a transition towards a more synthetic unity between professions, creating new professional figures that cross traditional disciplinary boundaries is also advisable. These figures would use a reformed conception of place, with all its dynamics, as an instrument to implement a real transdisciplinary dialogue.
3.1 Biological, Cosmological, Topological Realism
To further explore the question of realism in connection with design professions, a man ahead of his time, architect Richard J. Neutra, in the ‘60s, called for the necessity of a biological realism or biorealism – ‘the most practical sort of all realism, and its concerns include everything that is soul and body of man’.[46] This approach aimed to transcend traditional stylistic debates and focus on the interplay between physiological, psychological, and environmental processes – a message that remains relevant today (I’ve talked about that in the article The 3rd Skin: Survival Through Design). Implicit in Neutra’s message was the need for architects to pay attention to environmental dynamics globally. With the same realist intent, I am emphasizing the importance of understanding environmental dynamics from a 360-degree perspective, which I refer to as the ‘total environment’. This concept redefines the notion of place as a system of interconnected processes, encompassing the entire range of natural processes, from physicochemical to biological, ecological, social, cultural, intellectual, and symbolic, as well as their interconnected dynamics. Decades after Neutra, we are now aware that the total environment, the Cosmos itself with its newly discovered laws and interconnected inhabitants, demands that we adopt a biological realism that extends to a cosmological or topological realism – what can be termed ‘toporealism’, or the realism of place – since we are recognizing place as the most fundamental and universal unit that underlies reality and all its processes, from things (inorganic realm) and life (organic realm) to societies (vegetal, animal, and human), thought or symbols (exclusive human realm). The elucidation of these notions allows design professions, which are intrinsically structured on places, to comply with the different aspects of reality (physicochemical, biological, ecological, social, cultural, symbolic), all at once, and according to the new body of scientific and philosophical knowledge, which is changing our understanding of nature in systemic, organic, and holistic terms.
3.2 Reality, Realism, and New Realism: Ordinary, and Philosophical Meanings
In the preceding section, I presented my intuitive views on‘reality’, ‘realism’, and ‘new realism’, starting with their linguistic roots in Latin (‘reality’ and ‘real’ from the Latin realis and res, meaning ‘thing’). Interestingly, I later found that my perspective aligned with Heidegger’s, via Kant: as we have seen, reality pertains to the nature of things, rather than their actual presence or absence (i.e., their actuality). That perspective is different from our ordinary understanding of reality, in the sense of actuality, which is a sense ‘we have to drop’, Heidegger continues, since ‘the present use has presumably come about through a failure to understand and through a misunderstanding of Kant’s usage.’ [47] Now, let’s examine what traditional linguistic and philosophical sources have to say about ‘reality’, ‘realism’, and ‘new realism’.
Concerning ‘reality’ the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) defines it in terms of ‘quality of being real or having an actual existence… Correspondence to fact; truth… resemblance to what is real… real existence; what is real; the aggregate of real things or existences; that which underlies and is the truth of appearances or phenomena… that which constitutes the actual thing, as distinguished from what is merely apparent or external…’,[48] other connotations redirect us to the meanings of the attributes ‘real’ and ‘actual’, or to the nouns ‘fact’ and ‘truth’, which are all connotations closely tied to the traditional materialist view that only matter exists, making only material things (facts) ‘real’ and ‘true’. This is confirmed when we look at what the OED says with respect to the attribute ‘real’.
Concerning the meaning of the attribute ‘real’, the first and most useful indication we can get from the OED is its etymological connection with the late Latin ‘realis’, from ‘res’ which means ‘thing’ –[49] as we have already seen. Ultimately, when we are speaking about ‘reality’ or what is ‘real’ we are speaking about ‘things’. Regarding the nature of such things, it appears that only ‘actual’ things are considered ‘real’, as most connotations exclude other things from ‘reality’ (this is the traditional sense that ‘we have to drop’ according to Heidegger). So, when we read what ‘real’ means according to the OED, we find that it can refer to something ‘having an objective existence; actually existing as a thing’, and with respect to its philosophical sense ‘real’ is what is ‘applied to whatever is regarded as having existence in fact and not merely in appearance, thought, or language, or as having an absolute and necessary, in contrast to a merely contingent, existence’.[50] Similarly, after a few lines, we read that ‘real’ is that which is ‘actually existing or present as a state or quality of things; having a foundation in fact; actually occurring or happening’ so that ‘real’ is what is ‘genuine, undoubted.’[51] This characterization of the ‘real’ as opposed to other forms of existence is also reflected in the following definitions: ‘the real thing… as contrasted with imitations or counterfeits’, or when the OED defines the real as ‘that which actually exists, contrasted (a) with a copy… (b) with what is abstract or notional.’[52]
Considering the frequent reference to the ‘actual’ in definitions of the ‘real’, it may be interesting to explore the OED’s definition of ‘actual’ to avoid circular definitions that refer back to the ‘real’… So, we read that the word ‘actual’ originates from the late Latin ‘actual-is’, meaning ‘…of or pertaining to action’, which is derived from the noun ‘actus’ , meaning ‘acting’, and ultimately from the verb ‘ago-ire’, to act.[53] Then, we can see the primary meaning of ‘actual’ derived from its etymology as ‘pertaining to acts; exhibited in deeds; practical, active… Existing in act or fact; really acted or acting; carried out; real; — opposed to potential, possible, virtual, theoretical, ideal… In action or existence at the time; present, current…’ and in phrases like ‘in actual fact’ meaning ‘in reality, contrary to expectation or appearance… really, actually, as a matter of fact.’[54] Fundamentally, according to the OED, the ‘real’ and the ‘actual’ have a direct connection with ‘matter’ and ‘materialism’, often understood in opposition to non-material entities (e.g., appearance, notions, or abstractions in general). This ordinary sense differs from the position I have argued for.
As concerns the origin of the word ‘reality’, The Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology confirms our previous consideration, tracing the origin of the word back to the late Latin ‘realis’ and ultimately to ‘res’, meaning ‘thing.’ [55]
Now, let’s see what we can get from the analysis of the word ‘reality’ undertaken by The Oxford Companion to Philosophy. Our first observation is that the word ‘reality’ is not directly referenced, but it is A] indirectly present in the description of the word ‘real’. In the definition of the term ‘real’ it is stated: ‘If “reality” is taken to be the sum total of all that is real, then for ‘real’ we do have to read something like “existent”’,[56] although the nature of this “existent” is not specified, or perhaps it is assumed to be the ‘physical’ existent, based on the preceding definitions of what is ‘real’. I ask: are atoms, chairs, and glass the only things that exist, or can we also consider feelings, ideas, numbers, fiction, or information as truly existing? Without referencing David Lewis’ modal realism, which suggests that non-actual objects have a fully-blooded existence in other possible worlds.[57] In the OCP, the term ‘reality’ is also B] directly analysed in opposition to the term ‘appearance’, speaking about this couple in terms of ‘problem’ (i.e., the appearance-reality problem),[58] a traditional philosophical debate that has led to dualistic views, which my interpretation of ‘realism’ and ‘new realism’ aims to reject. It is starting from such a question, ‘the adequacy of our representations and our ability to distinguish between the veridical and the illusory’, that epistemology, metaphysics, philosophy of science, ethics, or even psychology begin their ‘constructive and critical projects’.[59] Personally, I would speak of appearance as a part of reality and not in opposition to it. After all, as Heidegger also demonstrated in his essay What Is a Thing?, appearance doesn’t necessarily mean something deceitful, as it often does in its ordinary, devaluative sense; instead, in its original sense, appearance is closely tied to a thing’s very existence, its ‘physis’ (physical or natural existence), which can be understood as ‘the unfolding that opens itself up, the coming-into-appearance in such unfolding, and holding itself and persisting in appearance-in short, the emerging-abiding sway.’[60] Ultimately, no-thing exists without appearance, Heidegger tells us. Another question is whether we can be deceived by appearances, which relates to our epistemological and psychological struggle to understand what lies behind them (for example, the conception of place as system of processes and the identification of such processes is a mode to see what is behind the appearance of places-i.e., the phenomenon of place).
Now that we’ve examined definitions of ‘reality’ that largely align with traditional views of matter and materialism in the physical sense, let’s move on to ‘realism’. Based on our understanding of what is considered ‘real’, one might expect a complete devaluation of what is opposed to the ‘real’ (abstraction, or subjectivity for instance); however, this is not always the case, as there are contrasting views that exist, which are connected to a different sense of the term compared to the past, as Heidegger also explained in the passage I extensively quoted. Let’s examine this question in more detail.
The Oxford English Dictionary immediately provides a philosophical framework for understanding ‘realism’, initially defining it as ‘The scholastic doctrine of the objective or absolute existence of universals, of which Thomas Aquinas was the chief exponent… Also in later use: the attribution of objective existence to a subjective conception’.[61] In a few words, according to these connotations of realism, abstractions (i.e., ‘universals’) and subjectivity (‘subjective conception’) can be seen as having an objective existence, which seems counterintuitive when judged by the ordinary modern understanding of matter, materialism, and reality. The first position can be eventually traced back to Plato (i.e. Platonic realism – the theory of reality developed by Plato, which posits that ‘mathematical entities subsist independently both of the empirical world and of human thought’).[62] Anyway, this is congruent with the image offered by Heidegger, when he said that reality completely changed its meaning, in modern times, after inaccurate interpretations of Kant’s Critique. The other connotations of ‘realism’ proposed by the OED align with our understanding so far of the ‘real’ in its traditional or ordinary sense: therefore, realism is the ‘belief in the real existence of matter as the object of perception (natural realism); also the view that the physical world has independent reality, and is not ultimately reducible to universal mind or spirit (opposed to Idealism)… In the 20th century, [realism] applied to philosophical theories reacting against 19th-century idealism which, while they agree in affirming that external objects exist independently of the mind, differ in their accounts of appearance, perception, and illusion. More recently the theory that the world has a reality that transcends the mind’s analytical capacity… Inclination or attachment to what is real; tendency to regard things as they really are; any view or system contrasted with Idealism… [and with reference to art and literature:] Close resemblance to what is real; fidelity of representation, rendering the precise details of the real thing or scene… A real fact or experience’.[63]
Concerning the etymological analysis of the word ‘realism’, even in this case, The Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology returns to the attribute ‘real’ from the Latin ‘realis’ and ‘res’ – ‘thing’ – with specific reference to philosophy, ‘in the sense adherent of philosophical realism’, dispelling any doubt on the fact that the coinage of the term, ‘realism,’ originated from philosophical debates (as also indirectly supported by the Oxford English Dictionary, where the first connotations presented are philosophical connotations). So, we now redirect to The Oxford Companion to Philosophy to gain further insight into the philosophical meaning of ‘realism’.
Apart from introducing different kinds of ‘realism’ (e.g., mathematical realism, naïve realism, new realism, quasi-realism), which immediately give us the idea of the complexity and subtleties of the argument, ‘realism’ is described by the OCP in opposition to ‘anti-realism’, which is consistent with our previous observations, both with respect to materialism/matter (whose meanings were often elucidated in opposition to other concepts, e.g., mind, form, idea, etc.) and reality/real (often in opposition to what is abstract, conceptual, apparent, illusory, etc.).[64] The OCP describes realism/anti-realism in terms of ‘directions, not positions’, given that ‘to assert that something is somehow mind-independent is to move in the realist direction: to deny it is to move in the opposite direction.’[65] Fundamentally, we are entering a hybrid territory where ‘No sane position is reached at either extreme. Not everything is in every way independent of minds [e.g., pain]… Not everything depends in every way on minds [e.g., the presence of the moon even if we do not look at it].’[66] Between the two extremes, there are different forms of realism, or, as the OCP says, the ‘bewildering variety of senses’, some of which we are going to consider now.
Following a historical timeline, as we’ve seen, in medieval scholastic philosophy, ‘realism was a theory predication opposed to nominalism and conceptualism’;[67] according to ‘realism’ the proposition ‘the snow is white’ is true if the substance-snow has the property of whiteness which is independent of minds (therefore, properties are properties of something independent of our minds, contrarily to what conceptualism and nominalism hold: conceptualism says properties are mind-dependent, while nominalism goes even further affirming that properties – e.g., ‘whiteness’- depend on a particular language and not merely on thought).[68] Kant, the OCP continues, opposed ‘realism to idealism distinguishing transcendental and empirical versions of each. The empirical realist holds (like Kant) that we can have knowledge of the existence and nature of material objects in space and time. The transcendental realist holds (unlike Kant) that the existence and nature of the objects so known is wholly independent of our knowledge of them.’[69] There may be a combination of the two positions, which as far as I understand, is the position maintained by Whitehead in the end (the reformed subjectivist principle, which is a position I also maintain), according to which ‘my perception of the tree depends essentially on the tree, because I could not have had that perception without perceiving the tree…
There may be a combination of empirical realism (the position of Kant) and transcendental realism according to which perception depends essentially on the object perceived because I could not have any perception without the object (reformed subjectivist principle).
… After Kant – again, we are reading from the OCP – realism meant above all the view that we perceive objects whose existence and nature are independent of our perceptions.’[70] According to the OCP, ‘realism’, in the latter connotation, may lead to scepticism because of the devaluation of the role of the subject (hence of perception, values, beliefs, etc.). This fact leads to anti-realist positions which may take many forms.
This ‘direction’ of realism is quite different from the direction I have taken which, I repeat, is close to that of Whitehead’s reformed subjectivist principle, that is: first there are objects – which is a realistic and materialistic position; yet, objects are/may be prehended or perceived by subjects or minds – which is an idealistic or subjectivist position; from the complementarity of the two moments, reality emerges as a whole, i.e., the holistic and systemic direction of ‘realism’ I support, or ‘new realism’ if we consider the novel historical context we are living – new physics, new cosmology, new Epoch (the Anthropocene) and new Age (the Age of Information), new ethics… Like in the past epochs, the human-nature relationship is conditioned by physical and cosmological visions which are still under definition, but are conditioned by the research for the ‘final’ unification of physical laws – the so-called ‘theory of everything’ – after Newton and Maxwell.
Among different forms of realism, I’d like to mention ‘naïve realism’ and, of course, ‘new realism’, which is the direction of realism I have spoken about, but which may have different senses and histories. Concerning the former, the OCP says that, although ‘is often said to be the view of the person on the street’, it is at any effect a ‘theory of perception [according to which] our ordinary perception of physical objects is direct, unmediated by awareness of subjective entities, and that, in normal perceptual conditions, these objects have the properties they appear to have’.[71]
As regards ‘New Realism’, first, it was used to describe an American philosophical movement formed by a collective of students of Harvard Professor Josiah Royce (1855-1916); they opposed the absolute idealism professed by Royce. Fundamentally, that movement, by means of a common manifesto and publications, ‘held a theory of direct acquaintance with physical objects.’[72] More recently, the expression ‘New realism’ has been re-proposed by the Italian philosopher Maurizio Ferraris and his younger colleague, the German philosopher Markus Gabriel: when, in 2012, Gabriel ‘was planning an international conference on the fundamental character of contemporary philosophy’, asked for a possible title of that conference, Ferraris answered: ‘New realism’.[73] Ferraris immediately wrote articles and a book with that title – ‘Manifesto of New Realism’ – pointing out that the reflections developed in the book summarized his past twenty years of activity and that ‘New realism, in fact, is not at all “my own theory,” nor is it a specific philosophical current, and it is not even a koiné of thought. It is simply a photograph (which I deem realistic indeed) of a state of affairs…’.[74] In a certain sense, this is the position I expressed in a passage above concerning my intention to use the expression ‘new realism’ in connection with the new sentiment of an epoch completely divergent from the past (an epoch defined by a new physics, a new cosmology, new ethics, and new names-the Anthropocene, or even the Information Age), and not in the reference to a precise philosophical current (such as the one professed by the American philosophers or by Gabriel). Ferraris continues: ‘What I call “new realism,” in fact, is first of all the acknowledgment of a turn…a severe denial of what I regard as the two dogmas of postmodernism: namely, that all reality is socially constructed and infinitely manipulable, and that truth is a useless notion because solidarity is more important than objectivity. Real needs, real lives and deaths, not bearing to be reduced to mere interpretations, have asserted their rights confirming the idea that realism (just like its opposite) not only has implications for knowledge but also for ethics and politics.’[75] Ferraris also wrote ‘A Brief History of New Realism’ which is an accessible and interesting retrospective on ‘New Realism’ and also a view on its future perspectives.[76]
Markus Gabriel, a German philosopher and colleague of Ferraris, is a prominent advocate for a new realist perspective. In his essays and in the book ‘Fields of Sense: A New Realist Ontology’ he presents a unique view of ‘new realism’ that occupies a middle ground between metaphysical realism (the world existing in itself, i.e., the world without spectators) and constructivism (the world of spectators, i.e., the world as a subjective and/or social construction) ‘recognizing the existence of perspectives and constructions as world-involving relations’, which is, fundamentally, a ‘middle-ground’ position I agree with.[77] In the book edited by Jan Voosholz , titled ‘Markus Gabriel’s New Realism’, Gabriel states that ‘New Realism […] sets out from a thorough rejection of the idea that to be (real) is to be mind-independent. Minds, their aspects, and their artifacts (language, consciousness, perception, culture, theories, etc.) are fully legitimate denizens of reality. While some parts of reality are mind-independent in the sense of being maximally modally robust (they would have been the way we discover them to be even if we had never been around to discover them), other parts are the way they are only because we discover or produce them’.[78] Again, a point of view I feel close to since it requires considering all aspects of reality, assigning them different weights, and thus giving them specific ontological relevance. Translated into architectural language: according to this new realistic perspective, both glass and numbers are real, that is, both material and immaterial aspects of architecture deserve specific attention since reality, including architecture as a relevant part of it, is comprised of both material and immaterial aspects. This means that immaterial realities like feelings, ideals, or memories play a role in shaping architecture, just like physical materials like stones, bricks, and metal do.
I conclude this brief panoramic view on the different perspectives and meanings of ‘new realism’ by referring to art and, in the next paragraph, architecture: in the first case, the reference is to the artistic movement (Nouveau Réalisme) founded in the ‘60s, between Italy and France by the art critic Pierre Restany and the painter Yves Klein. Artists like Arman, Jean Tinguely, César, Christo, Daniel Spoerri, and many others adhered to the movement, appealing to a ‘new perceptive approaches of the real’.[79] That was a call to return to reality by re-examining everyday objects, industrial products, waste, and other rejected items, and incorporating them directly into their art.
3.3 New Realism for Architects
Regarding the connection between ‘new realism’ and architecture, we can look to a series of conferences held in Italy, which were influenced by the presence of Italian philosopher Maurizio Ferraris’ scientific coordination and his Manifesto of New Realism. These conferences, including ‘Nuovo Realismo e Architettura della Città’, in Turin (2012), ‘Nuovo Realismo e Razionalismo’, in Turin (2013), ‘La provocazione del Reale. Nuovo Realismo e Razionalismo, un Dibattito Architettonico e Filosofico tra Italia e Germania’, in Menaggio (2014), ‘Nuovo Realismo/postmodernismo: dibattito aperto fra architettura e filosofia’, in Rome (2014), provided a welcome call for architecture to focus on reality after decades of postmodernism, deconstructivism, and digital experimentations in the early 2000s. These mainly Italian, academically focused discussions (inspired by Ferraris’ Manifesto of New Realism) explored the relationship between architecture and reality within the context of architectural rationalism, which differs from the perspective on architecture and new realism I am developing in these pages.
Here, I summarize the main topics that, in my opinion, enable us to discuss design professions in direct connection with a new realism (a new conception of reality): [i] the impact of the new physics on our understanding of reality and on traditional concepts of matter, space, place, and time, which are basic concepts for architects; [ii] the consequent shift towards a new cosmology and a new understanding of nature with the passage from a mechanic, deterministic, and reductionistic vision to one organic, systemic and probabilistic, which, it is my contention, should be reflected in an analogous organic and systemic approach to design professions; [iii] the entrance into a new epoch, the Anthropocene, which is changing the perspective of architecture-nature interactions, thereby changing the core structure of architecture itself and other design professions, as the new paradigms of sustainability are showing; [iv] the need for a new ethical framework that moves beyond anthropocentrism; the new ethics should be reflected in new design approaches and, most importantly, in the development and implementation of specific design/conceptual tools inspired by those significant changes and enabling architects’ professions to adapt to these shifts effectively; I am speaking of: [v] the concept of place as system of processes; [vi] the consequent rejection of physicalist interpretations of space and its delimitation to a no-less important conceptual/cognitive (i.e., ideal) role, as the result of interrelated scientific discoveries (new physics, environmental psychology – e.g., James J. Gibson’s pioneeristic studies – and neurosciences – e.g., John O’Keefe’s studies) and philosophical speculation; [vii] the understanding of matter as place, i.e, things are places (a derivation from contemporary physics which is also explicable in terms of Heideggerian spatial analysis), which means understanding architecture as place (a place of processes), rather than, or before than, a discipline of space; [viii] the necessity for architects to confront with and understand the environment as a ‘total environment’ (contemporarily natural and cultural, with all the gradients between them, i.e., ecological, economic, social, political, religious…), which is a derivation from point five; consequently, [ix] the necessity for design professions to adopt a transdisciplinary approach to manage and design within this complex environment. Finally, [x] these new tools and approaches are necessary to understand the sense of design disciplines in the new Age of Information, where the line between the concrete and abstract is becoming increasingly blurred, with the risk that some unamendable physical aspects of nature may be overlooked and its processes get out of sight, and conversely, some abstract concepts may be mistaken for concrete ones (fallacy of misplaced concreteness), leading to confusion and a lack of understanding about the nature of reality.
Conclusions
We have considered different perspectives on materialism and realism, their explicative possibilities regarding our understanding of the nature of reality, and, consequently, the extent of their applicability in design practices—above all architecture.
Taking Bjarke Ingels’ ‘materialist manifesto’ for Domus 2025 as a starting point, we have explored the various senses of matter and, consequently, of materialism by examining the connection between everyday thought and philosophical speculation, drawing on linguistic and philosophical sources. We have highlighted the historical significance of the concept of matter in shaping our understanding of reality, tracing back to the ancient Greek concept of ‘physis’. If during the Greek epoch and even later, the concept of ‘the physical’ – i.e., ‘physis’, the physical existent (today we would say ‘the thing’ or ‘object’) – encompassed notions of matter and form, as well as principles of qualitative change and motion, which is fundamentally an Aristotelian model, with the advent of the modern epoch, this understanding changed dramatically: only matter was considered the true physical existent, and all other determinations were rejected. Matter was viewed as corporeal, atomic, solid, and unchangeable in itself, characteristics that shaped our ordinary understanding of matter as ‘the stuff of which a thing is made’, synonymous with the physical, and distinct from other aspects like mind, form, or abstract concepts, thereby creating dualisms such as mind/matter or form/matter or, again, mind/body, abstract/concrete, potential/actual, physical/mathematical, etc. This classical conception of matter, where everything is governed by the movement and order of particles in space and time, implies a mechanical, reductionist, and deterministic view of nature, rendering non-physical aspects like ideas, ideals, values, beliefs, feelings, and dreams irrelevant to understanding reality. This is the ultimate sense of the straight materialist vision according to which everything is made of matter and only matter exists. This means that every natural phenomenon can ultimately be explained by physical or mechanical laws, including mental states (reductivism). In contrast to this traditional, classical model of matter derived from classical physics, we’ve considered an alternative conception of matter based on contemporary physics and incorporating insights from old and new philosophical models, such as Aristotle, Leibniz, and Whitehead. This new model of matter, which puts together past with present thinking, scientific with philosophical thinking and recovering the sense and the importance of the Philosophy of Nature, implies a systemic and processual or organic model of nature (instead of mechanic), open to possibility and becoming (probabilistic rather than deterministic, thereby recovering the important concepts of potentiality and becoming as reservoir of the infinite creative possibilities of reality), irreducible to physical laws (i.e., irreducible to the possibility of explaining the complicate entanglement between systems in mere terms of the laws of motion and the spatial order/position of elementary ‘material’ particles) and advocating for complementary modes of understanding reality that reconcile dualisms such as body and mind, actual and potential, being and becoming… particle and wave… place and space. This vision reunites matter with nature, echoing the ancient Greek concept of ‘physis’, and thereby connects it to the nature of reality, which encompasses actuality and potentiality, body and mind, the concrete and the abstract, being and becoming. In this way, the revised conception of matter and, consequently, materialism can be seen as continuous with realism, specifically the ‘new realism’ I have described. Through the revised meaning of matter, we have seen the possibility of understanding matter as place, and place as a system of processes, which are both essential concepts for design professions, encompassing all aspects of reality, from concrete to abstract, physical to ideal, natural to cultural, and material to spiritual, with ‘place’ at the core of the new understanding of nature.
Image 09: I see a continuity between materialism and realism, provided materialism surpasses the classical conception of physical matter as the ultimate explanation of reality, which is a position incapable of coming to terms with the systemic complexity of today’s reality, and provided ‘realism’ is intended as ‘new realism’, according to the original Latin (and Kantian) conception of the ‘real’ (realis) as that which pertains to things (res), independently of their physical presence (actuality) or absence (inactuality). That means that both glass and numbers are ‘real’ and ‘material’, complementary parts of the same, unique reality.
The explanation of the conception of reality I have given doesn’t rely on existing philosophical, artistic, or architectural realist theories. Instead, it’s based on the fundamental understanding of reality as ‘thing’ in the original Latin sense of the term (reality from the Latin ‘res’, which means ‘thing’), a meaning shared by Kant and later clarified by Heidegger, despite modern interpretations that obscured it. This means that reality consists of both concrete and abstract ‘things’ or elements, such as matter and mind, feeling and thinking, being and becoming, actuality and potentiality, and even seemingly disparate things like glass and numbers. To gain a complete understanding of reality, we must recognize the complementary nature of these aspects. To put it differently, it means that reality presents both mind-independent and mind-dependent aspects and our focus must be fixed on both of them and their interactions. The attribute ‘new’ in ‘new realism’ refers to the novel circumstances that necessitate a distinction between past and present eras, including a new physics, a new cosmology, and a new conception of nature, as well as a new epoch, the Anthropocene, or a new age, the Age of Information, a new ethics, and new concepts of matter, place, and space. We have examined ten key points that illustrate how the new circumstances directly impact design professions and the necessity for architects to develop new theoretical tools and approaches to comply with the new understanding of nature or reality. A new epoch, a new conception of nature and a new cosmology, new disciplinary tools or concepts, and new approaches to design professions: this is why we advocate for a new realism for architects.
Notes
[1] Here you can read the manifesto.
[2] I’ve spoken about some of these approaches maintained by architects and critics in the articles ‘The Place of Architecture The Architecture of Place, Part II: A Historical Enquiry’, ‘A Theory of Place’, The Eisenman- Alexander Debate, Place and Occasion.
[3] ‘Sustainable development’ has been initially elaborated as a too-biased anthropocentric perspective; current revisions of that concept must necessarily widen the horizon of that perspective in a cosmological sense thereby including a more concerted focus on things and all living beings – for me, this is the sense of the contemporary focus on regenerative practices as an extension of sustainable development.
[4] The question of whether the meaning of certain concepts derives directly from philosophical (and physical) investigation passing into common speech or, conversely, from the erudite analysis of scholars to common-sense terminology is open and difficult to establish a priori: each case (i.e., each term or concept) require a specific analysis.
[5] The Oxford Companion to Philosophy, edited by Ted Honderich (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995).
[6] Ibid., 530.
[7] The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd edition (1997 Additions), Volume IV, prepared by J. A. Simpson and E. S. C. Weiner, reformatted by Beatrice Shallot (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1997), 3015.
[8] Ibid., 3016.
[9] Ibid., 3015.
[10] Ainsworth, Thomas, “Form vs. Matter”, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2024 Edition), Edward N. Zalta & Uri Nodelman (eds.), URL = <https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2024/entries/form-matter/>.
[11] Adrian Forty, Words and Buildings: A Vocabulary of Modern Architecture. London: Thames & Hudson, 2000. Adrian Forty, Concrete and Culture: A Material History. London: Reaktion Books LTD, 2012. Thomas A. Markus and Deborah Cameron, The Words Between the Spaces: Building and Language’. London: Routledge, 2002.
[12] see The Stockholm Water Prize.
[13] From the Italian Magazine Corriere della Sera: ‘Dobbiamo immaginare grandi mutamenti nelle tradizioni dei luoghi, negli assetti economici e sociali, e abbandonare le prospettive antropocentriche che guardano solo all’Homo sapiens e ai suoi interessi’
[14] Ultimately, concepts of ‘space’, ‘matter’, and ‘time’ reunited under the aegis of ‘place’ – a concept that also includes the field of physics – rather than considered independent realities as in the classical tradition.
[15] An example or consequence of such vision is the inclusion of places within new jurisdictions that equate the rights of places (rivers, mountains, plains, etc. – i.e., the rights of nature, fundamentally) to the rights of people since – I hold, and the concept of place I propose, place as system of processes, is instrumental to that – there is fundamental solidarity between all different entities of reality/nature (they are all places, places of processes…). In the past, I’ve talked about ‘the identity of places’ and the necessity for places to have ‘identity cards’, just like persons have, to better understand or to start delineating the essence of places as true living entities in order to recognize their uniqueness and unique role in the constitution of nature – i.e., ecosystems of which we, as human beings, are also a part. On the argument you can see the articles Should rivers have the same rights as people? or even Taranaki Mounga: New Zealand mountain granted same legal rights as a person.
[16] Ibid., 3016-3019.
[17] The Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, edited by C.T. Onions (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1982), 562.
[18] Ibid., 539.
[19] Ibid., 539.
[20] Ibid., 539.
[21] Ibid., 530-531.
[22] In Albert Einstein and Leopold Infeld, The Evolution of Physics (London: The Scientific Book Club, 1938), 256-258.
[23] For details on the matrix of existence out of which the ordered Cosmos emerges, see Edward S. Casey, The Fate of Place: A Philosophical History (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997.
[24] Richard Sorabji, Matter, Space & Motion: Theories in Antiquity and Their Sequel (London: Gerald Duckworth & Co. Ltd., 1988) 124.
Image 10: Illustration from Camille Flammarion’s L’atmosphère : météorologie populaire (Paris: Hachette, 1888). The concept of place as system of processes offers a solution to one of the most debated physical problems in antiquity.
[25] therefore, coming to architecture, we should reject architectural theories founded on physicalist notions of space: if we can still affirm that architecture is a theory of space it is because space is the abstract imaginative structure that architects make us of to control physical places, and not because there exists an entity ‘out there’ called ‘space’; that entity, actually is just the dimensionality – an abstract notion – that is intrinsic to place or to the relation between things in place (yet, we are saying that with the new understanding of matter as field, things are places) which are all concrete notions.
[26] See paragraph 9. The Problem of the Physical Existent, and 14. Motion, Action, and Physical Being in the article Place, Space, and the Philosophy of Nature.
[27] Here ‘against’ reminds us of the Heideggerian notion of opposition which I have talked about in Being as Place: Introduction to Metaphysics – Part Two (The Limitation of Being): without opposition, it is difficult to have an exhaustive understanding of phenomena, since opposition also means ‘unity’ according to Heidegger: the two opposing brackets – ( ) – define an internal unit, just like in a sort of yin-yang relationship where the whole – the unity – is made of two opposing parts.
[28] many contemporary physicists and philosophers of science noted similarities between the new science and certain arguments drawn from Aristotelian physics and metaphysics; different books and papers have been written on the subject.
[29] The Oxford English Dictionary, 2976.
[30] Ibid., 2976.
[31] The Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, 561.
[32] The Oxford Companion to Philosophy, edited by Ted Honderich (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995), 530.
[33] Ibid., 530
[34] Ibid., 531.
[35] Ibid., 531.
[36] Ibid., 531.
[37] Ibid., 679.
[38] Ibid., 679.
[39] Martin Heidegger, What Is a Thing? (South Bend: Gateway Editions Ltd., 1976), 222.
[40] Alfred N. Whitehead, Process and Reality, 157, 160, 166, 167, and 189. I understand Maturana and Varela’s fundamental insight – ‘cognition is not a representation of the world ‘out there,’ but rather a ‘bringing forth of the world through the process of living itself’ (as presented by Frjtiof Capra in ‘The Tree of Knowledge‘) – as a specific case of Whitehead’s processual philosophy. Both theories disprove dualism. My interpretation of reality as place of processes, which is a derivation of the Whiteheadian hypothesis and, consequently, accepts Maturana and Varela’s insights, is also another possibility to close the circle of reality, disproving dualism: physicochemical processes (THINGS) are appropriated by biological processes (LIFE), then by sociocultural processes (SOCIETIES), and eventually by symbolic/intellectual processes (SYMBOLS or THOUGHT), which lead back to physiochemical processes/things (it is through thinking and, specifically, through language, theories, artistic or religious expressions, etc. that we reappropriate the world of things). The circle is closed. This chain of appropriation of antecedent states, with a view toward subsequent appropriations, is a mechanism analogous to Whitehead’s organic philosophy, which my interpretative system of reality derives from (see Being as Place: Introduction to Metaphysics-Part Two images 15 and 16). In my view, place is the instrument that simultaneously [i] erases and [ii] preserves differences: [i] Everything is a place (of processes), which means that reality is a place, ultimately; specifically, [ii] Reality is the place of: physichochemical, biological, sociocultural, symbolic processes and everything else is shaped by their interwoven dynamics (see On the Structure of Reality). Place beyond dualisms.
[41] concerning the consideration of space as a concrete entity, a modality I was also committed to before going deeper into spatial questions from different and more contemporary perspectives, see the article Archi-textures.
[42] Symbolically, from the perspective of physics, the beginning of the new epoch, or, better, the beginning of the transition toward a new cosmology that will take us to the unification of physical laws (what, somewhat improperly, has been called a theory of everything) I would set in the year 1905, when Einstein presented a series of scientific papers that would have changed the human picture of the world forever, introducing mankind to special relativity and quantum physics (with his paper on the photoelectric effect). Einstein’s relativity, quantum physics, complexity sciences, general system theories, chaos theory, systems ecology, and other branches of science that are at the foundation of modern and contemporary scientific visions, mark a conceptual shift (a paradigm shift) with respect to the past: we are passing from a mechanic, reductionist and deterministic vision of the world to an organic or systemic vision, irreducible to mere physical laws, and, by its nature, probabilistic and complementary (at this regard, I would trade the complementarity between particle and waves for actuality and potentiality, being and becoming).
[43] This is the official statement released by the IUGS, after the proposal for naming the Anthropocene a new Geological Time Scale was rejected on March 2024: ‘Although their proposal has been decisively rejected, the AWG [Anthropocene Working Group] has performed an important service to the scientific community by assembling a wide body of data on human impacts on global systems, and this database will be an essential source of reference well into the future. Moreover, the Anthropocene as a concept will continue to be widely used not only by Earth and environmental scientists, but also by social scientists, politicians and economists, as well as by the public at large. As such, it will remain an invaluable descriptor in human-environment interactions. But it will not be recognised as a formal geological term but will more usefully be employed informally in future discussions of the anthropogenic impacts on Earth’s climatic and environmental systems.’
[44] the analogy is with respect to two other breakpoints or periods in history: [i] Aristotle’s physics and Ptolemaic cosmology; [ii] Copernican cosmology and Newtonian physics.
[45] Nicola Emery, L’Architettura Difficile: Filosofia del Costruire (Milano: Christian Marinotti Edizioni, 2007), 167.
[46] Richard J. Neutra, World and Dwelling (New York: Universe Books, Inc., 1962), 10. See also The 3rd Skin: Survival Through Design
[47] See What Is a Thing?
[48] The Oxford English Dictionary, Volume V, 610-611.
[49] Ibid., 601.
[50] Ibid., 601-602.
[51] Ibid., 602-603.
[52] Ibid., 606.
[53] The Oxford English Dictionary, Volume II, 357.
[54] Ibid., 358.
[55] The Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, edited by C.T. Onions (Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1982), 743.
[56] The Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, 746.
[57] The Oxford Companion to Philosophy, 257.
[58] Ibid., 41.
[59] Ibid., 41.
[60] See Chapter One- Section C. Phusis: the fundamental word for beings as such in the article Being as Place: Introduction to Metaphysics – Part One
[61] The Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, 608.
[62] The Oxford Companion to Philosophy, 686, Platonism.
[63] The Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, 608-609.
[64] The Oxford Companion to Philosophy, 746.
[65] Ibid. 746.
[66] Ibid. 746.
[67] Ibid. 746.
[68] Ibid. 746.
[69] Ibid. 746.
[70] Ibid. 746.
[71] Ibid. 602.
[72] Ibid. 618.
[73] Maurizio Ferraris, Manifesto of New Realism, translated by Sarah De Sanctis (Albany: SUNY Press, 2014), xiii.
[74] Ibid., xiii.
[75] Ibid., xiv-xv.
[76] Maurizio Ferraris, A Brief history of New Realism, in Filozofija i Društvo, XXVII (3), 2016.
[77] Markus Gabriel, Field of Sense: A New realist Ontology (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2015), viii
[78] In response to Charles Travis. In: Markus Gabriel’s New Realism edited by Jan Voosholz. Springer, 2024 e-book edition.
[79] From the manifesto signed on Thursday, 27 October 1960, we reed: ‘Nouveau Réalism= nouvelles approches perceptives du réel’
Cited Works
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Casey, Edward S. The Fate of Place: A Philosophical History. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997.
Einstein, Albert and Infeld, Leopold. The Evolution of Physics. London: The Scientific Book Club, 1938.
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—. Manifesto of New Realism, translated by Sarah De Sanctis. Albany: SUNY Press, 2014.
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—. Concrete and Culture: A Material History. London: Reaktion Books LTD, 2012.
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Markus, Thomas A. and Cameron, Deborah The Words Between the Spaces: Building and Language’. London: Routledge, 2002.
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Image Credits
Featured Image: What it Means to Be Real, collective composition, Alessandro Calvi Rollino Architetto, CC BY-NC-SA.
Images 02, 03, 04: Bjarke Ingels Group, on big.dk
Image 09: Passing Baton, on istockphoto.com
Image 10: The Flammarion engraving, on wikipedia.
All other images by Alessandro Calvi Rollino Architetto, CC BY-NC-SA.
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