Glossary of terms:

 

Anthrope-Man / Anthrope-Subject

 

 

 

This distinction is of fundamental importance

for the architecture we deal with on architecturer.net

 

Architecting for an anthrope-Man or for an anthrope-subject

is not the same act.

In architecture,

the anthrope-Man has a desire other than

the anthrope-subject for whom architecture is a real necessity

 

The anthrope-Man is a priori constituted of reason and capable of judgement.

The anthrope-subject does not even exist a priori, and his stance is essentially labile.

 

Architecture for the human-anthrope

differs from

the architecture of the anthrope-subject.

 

We differentiate it literally by a hyphen and a capital letter:

 

The architecture for the human anthrope is there for his well-being.

The architecture of the subject-anthrope is there for his well Being.

 

 

Let us see how....

 

 

Three terms: Anthrope, Man, Subject.

 

*

 

Anthrope - Man

 

 

The word 'anthrope' is a neologism proposed by Jean Stillemans.

 

We note that

-       Anthropos, is an ancient Greek word (Άνθρωπος), designating the human in its most generic determination which is the object of anthropology

 

 

-       -anthrope is a suffix meaning anthropic being and not a human being.

 

The intention of proposing a common name -anthrope-

is to get rid of

connotations of the word 'human'.

 

 

 

‘Human' is not detached from the notion of 'man'.

Male, then.

 

Human' also carries in itself,

by common etymology,

the notion of 'humus'.

As if man,

to the exclusion of women,

was the humus of humanity....

 

This is a connotation that is difficult to shake off.

A typical case of this attachment is

in French

that the term the ‘Rights of the Man’ ( Droits de l’homme)

has, with good intentions

transformed the expression ‘Rights of the Man’ into

into 'Human rights'.

This is obviously to avoid the ridicule of

‘Rights of the Man of women'.

 

But with the word 'human',

as we have seen ,

still retains the relationship to the Man-male-humus of humanity. 

It would have been better to choose

Anthropic rights'.

 

 

It is also a question of getting rid of

of the word 'humanism'.

Today, it is not clear what the word means.

 

It may mean an attitude of thought that 'places man and human values a priori above all other values' (Larousse).

This is a doctrine of pretentiousness and abstruse self-importance in the light of what history has shown us in terms of the production of misery of which only Mankind is capable.

 

Humanism' may, on the contrary also, indicate

a kind of soft altruism that forgives everything to man.

 

According to the CNRTL, 'humanism' can mean an attitude of thought that manifests 'a lively critical appetite for knowledge, aimed at the fulfilment of man, made 'more human' by 'culture' .....

As if the culture of a pre-established and sufficient 'Man' were a guarantee of goodness.....

 

Humanism' can, without knowing it, be connoted

of Renaissance humanism

which was nothing else,

under the guise of reference to antiquity,

and ending the Middle Ages,

than the institution of an attitude of thought

which believed man capable of

to construct an ideal world entirely,

outside of all Reality.

That is, to support the belief

that the anthrope-man could be

complete, whole and central to himself,

capable a priori of judgment...

All this, thought as well as science

has shown it to be entirely false.

 

One cannot help but point out

how Lacoue-Labarthe

has magnificently and simply shown that

Nazism is a humanism……

 

*

 

 

We therefore choose to use the word 'anthrope’

 

Anthrope', like the Greek word 'Anthropos',

therefore refers to

what is too often called 'human',

in its most generic

in its most generic sense

as in the word 'anthropology'.

 

This is immediately understandable,

in the opposite direction,

that to call the anthrope 'Man' is

is an absurdity.

Not to mention that is criminal.

For to say that the anthrope is Man 

is also to say that the anthrope is not 'Woman' at all.

For it still means that

what is anthropic is essentially man,

to the exclusion of any contribution by the woman.

 

In psychology, this desire to exclude women is understandable...

Women have the a priori power

to be able to give birth to a newborn anthrope.

This is a major power...

Which makes all other powers secondary.

It is an almost divine power....

‘Woman is the proof that God does not exist...’

(Alain Badiou - Remarkable conference on femininity....)

There is nothing divine about the man-male in this sense...

Hence all his desire for power.

And his reluctance to give it to women.

This is obviously true in politics.

But it is particularly true in arkhè-tecture...

Man, in his miserable condition,

will hardly recognise an arkhe-

that is, a primary authority,

to the woman....

And we had to wait until the XXIth century

to count among the architects,

a significant number of women.

 

 

 

It is therefore absurd to accept in thought

that the anthrope is 'Man

and even that he is 'human'.

 

To this we must add

that the humanism of the 15th and 16th centuries

was an attitude of thought

which established the anthrope

as a man

self-sufficient

who stands within himself,

central to himself,

endowed a priori with reason,

capable a priori of judgment,

or simply ...

a priori existing,

and establishing itself by itself.

 

All this is just wishful thinking.....

 

In architecture the results of this attitude of thought are striking.

It is a question of establishing a 'space',

a whole space',

perfectly constructed, by the whole number

entirely sufficient,

obliterating the Real and nature,

closed,

finite,

entirely containing its reason in itself,

in a triple opposition:

opposition between interior and exterior,

opposition between finite and infinite

opposition between face-façade and its inner depth.

offering to the whole Man, free from the Real

a well-being of power

by what he appropriates or produces

in possession as in sentimental happiness.

 

 

 

Fascinating attitude

casting a closed spell

to the Western anthropic world

which has become necessarily

an ego-centric 'humanity'.

 

 

 

 

 

Anthrope - subject.

 

 

The anthrope is not 'Man'.

 

The anthrope is 'subject'.

 

Both thought and science have established this.

 

 

The word 'subject' has a double meaning.

It can mean 'subject' as well as

as it can be 'capable' of presiding a sentence.

 

And all contemporary non-reactionary thought,

beginning with Schopenhauer,

followed by Freud, Cantor, Laborit..., Lacan, ...Badiou,...Damasio...

is to say finally

that the anthrope is 'subject'.

 

That he is not central to himself.

That he is not endowed a priori with an objective reason.

On the contrary, he is the subject of the unconscious, which is not even his own.

That he must find himself....

The subject is to be found' (Alain Badiou in 'Théorie du Sujet')

That it does not therefore exist a priori.

That it does not stand in itself.

That it 'is' the intersection of others (subjects or objects...).

That its 'Being' is the crossing of others...from which it is difficult to distinguish.

That it is always insufficient.

That it is never finished...

That it is always in-finite...

That it must therefore be infinite in the reception of the event that establishes it.

That it is established by event.

 

The subject is therefore essentially 'labile'.

It can collapse.

And become, even to itself, a simple real without reality.

It must be heled to stand.

And his stance in the face of the Real is his dignity

                        Dignitas was the essential intention of architecture for Alberti.

 

 

 

In architecture the results of this attitude of thought are striking.

It is a matter of establishing a 'space'

that is never whole,

unfinished, by the number without end

insufficient,

accepting in itself the Real and the nature,

open,

in-finite and infinite,

not containing all its reason in itself,

and in a triple non-opposition:

non-opposition between inside and outside,

non-opposition between finite and infinite

non-opposition between face and its inner depth.

pro-posing to the subject standing at a step of the Real

a well Being of primary stance,

ethical,

concrete authority allowing the sub-ject to live

in simple primary dignity.

 

Mies Pavillon Barcelona – Design:Paul Rudolph

 

 

 

House Los Vilos – Nishisawa – Photo: Nishisawa

 

 

Fascinating attitude

casting an open spell

to the anthropic world

that has become heterocentric ‘anthropy’.