Feeling
Why Chris was right to focus on feeling
In Notes, Chris attempted an objective discussion of what was happening in the environment when the design was “right”. This was defined as an environment in which there are no “locked in” conflicts creating inescapable stresses. This definition implies a certain feeling, in that the criterion involves stress, and stress is something that we feel.
It’s also turns out to be a persistent in modern times, in that excessive or persistent stress can lead to dysfunctional conditions such as G.A.S. (Generalised Anxiety Syndrome), chronic stress and its health impacts, and depression, which W.H.O. has tracked as reaching epidemic proportions globally.
More explicitly, in the remainder of his work, Chris focussed on feeling as the key indicator for making design decisions. And this make sense, in that if the “goodness” of the environment can be felt, then feeling is very practical and alway at hand instrument for testing the goodness of any design decision.
These are some of the terms he used (compiled via ChatGPT4) for the “properties” that feeling might detect.
I put “properties” in quotes, because I again attribute this to reification. When we love someone, it does not mean that love exists in that person. Feelings and emotions are situational and relational.
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1. Wholeness
Wholeness is central to Alexander's theory in The Nature of Order. It refers to the deep, intrinsic coherence of a system or environment, where every part contributes to the greater structure in a meaningful way. Wholeness is not just about symmetry or balance but about the dynamic interplay that creates life and vitality in a space.
2. Life
Alexander often describes this state as "life" or "living structure." In his view, environments and objects can possess a degree of life based on how well they resonate with the deeper structures of nature. The more life a thing has, the more it aligns with this ultimate quality.
3. Goodness
He sometimes refers to this state as "goodness," emphasizing the moral and aesthetic alignment of a space with human well-being and harmony. Goodness, for Alexander, is not subjective but arises from objective patterns that resonate universally.
4. Beauty
Beauty, in Alexander's terms, is not merely aesthetic but also deeply structural. A beautiful thing or environment has an inherent harmony that reflects the underlying order of the universe.
5. The Field of Centers
Alexander uses the term "centers" extensively in The Nature of Order. Centers are the fundamental building blocks of wholeness, and the quality he seeks is achieved when these centers interact in a way that creates a lively, harmonious field. The "field of centers" is a state where every part of a system strengthens and reinforces every other part.
6. Grace
Grace is another term he uses, reflecting the sense of naturalness, ease, and profound simplicity that emerges in environments that possess this quality.
7. Harmony
Harmony is closely related to wholeness, describing the state in which all parts of a system work together in a seamless, interconnected way. This term often appears when Alexander describes the interplay of patterns in living systems.
8. Deep Feeling
Alexander often connects this quality to a profound emotional resonance, which he calls "deep feeling." This is the sense of connection, peace, and joy people experience when interacting with places or objects that embody this ultimate state.
9. The Sacred
Alexander frequently ties this quality to spirituality, referring to it as "the sacred." He suggests that environments or objects that achieve this state touch something eternal and universal, evoking reverence.
10. God
In The Nature of Order, Alexander sometimes refers to this quality as "God," reflecting his belief in a universal, spiritual dimension to the patterns and structures he studies. He does not mean this in a strictly religious sense but as a recognition of the profound order and connectedness of existence.
11. The Mirror of the Self
Alexander uses this metaphor to describe how spaces and objects that embody this quality reflect the inner nature of the people who interact with them. Such spaces create a sense of belonging and emotional resonance.
12. The Spirit
He occasionally refers to this quality as "the spirit," emphasizing its ineffable, transcendent nature. It is the animating force behind all life and beauty.
Neuroscience of feeling
The first indication I found that Chris might be right in his honing on feeling as decision-making criterion was the 1994 book “Descartes Error” by the neuroscientist Antonio Damasio. The title refers to the Cartesian model of the human being, at the centre of which is a rational, immaterial mind, connected by a mechanistic body to a spatial and material world. There “error” here is Descrartes dismissal of emotion or feeling a trustworthy and important component of human functioning.
Descrates showed that people who had either trauma or lesion in a particular part of the brain—known as the anterior cingular cortex, which connected those parts of the brain which processed rational though to those that processed feeling and emotion, became unable to make even the most basic of decisions.
In one particularly poignant account (not in the book) Damasio went to visit a in institution which had as one of its inpatients a person with such damage. Damasio met with the director of the institution, and the patient was ushered in. The director asked the patient whether he wanted to tea or coffee. The patient starting systematically analysing and enumerating the relative advantages of having tea or coffee—without deciding which to have. He remained in this state during the whole of Damasio’s visit, endlessly analysing, incapable of deciding.
Damasio’s theory about the role feelings represent a summation of one’s overall experience in similar situations—how previous decisions had turned out. And this is what is then brought to bear on the actual making of a decisions. I know how to decide between coffee and tea in a particular situation, because I’ve made that decision thousands of times, and experienced the outcomes.
This is highlighted by story told in class by Horst Rittel, when I was at Berkeley. George Dantzig and his wife Anne Dantzig were two professors in operations research (the discipline devoted to making rational decisions) at Berkeley. George later became known as “the father of linear programming.”
They received an offer to move to an East Coast university. So, they compiled a long list of all the variables involved in choosing a place to live and work—salary, weather, housing prices, local schools, how the department ranked, who their colleagues would be, etc. They did research to assign each of the two options a value. Then, in order to sum these values (because this was now a multivalent problem) they had to assign a weight to each. They did this by having each member of the family assign of a weight to each of the variables, with the assignments of the parents counting double that of the children.
This then gave them a full analysis of each possible location for their work and life, with each variable suitably assessed and weighted to arrive at a single number for that location: Berkeley or the East Coast. Calculating these gave a unique number to each place: with the higher the number, the better the place, overall.
The calculation said the East Coast. They remained in Berkeley. When asked why, they said, “we like it here.” (They did later move to Stanford, not so far away.)
In my most recent check of the neuroscience literature, it seems that there seems to be a broad consensus of a clear connection between decision-making and feeling or emotion. There as yet no agreement about the specific mechanism. Most compelling, to me: brain activity scans during periods of intense decision-making show intense interaction between the cognitive and feeling parts of the brain.
The importance of a “feel” for things is found as early as Aristotle, who categorised knowledge into three kinds:
episteme: knowledge about things in general
techne: knowledge of how to make things
phronesis: knowledge of how to make decisions in context of a particular situation, for the benefit of the community as a whole.
From the first we get “epistemology”, and a paradigm of episteme is the natural sciences. From the second we get “technology”, a paradigm of techne is engineering. Phronesis is usually translated as “practical wisdom”, and a common theme in the research literature is that in the 20th century we paid too much attention to the first two, and not enough to the third.
Unlike epitome and techne, phronesis cannot be taught by school education. School education proceeds by teaching general rules or procedures that can applied in many different cases. Phronesis cannot be accomplished by procedural reasoning or step-by-step instruction. It needs to be acquired through experience. It may also be linked to case-based reasoning, an alternative to logical reasoning or rationality. This is outlined in Dreyfus and Dreyfus’ model for expert knowledge.
The way that expert knowledge works is exemplified by this old anecdote:
A manufacturer is having a problem with a large industrial engine, which won’t start. He calls in an expert. The expert looks over the engine. Pulls out a hammer. Taps a specific location. And the engine starts right up. A week later the manufacturer gets the bill: $5000. Angry, he calls up the expert and complains that the expert hadn’t been there fore more than 10 minutes. My mistake, says the expert. I’ll rewrite the invoice. The revised invoices arrives. It reads: Time attendance on site: $100. Knowing where to tap: $4900.
Feminist philosophy of feeling
Finally, there is the feminist perspective. The Cartesian worldview devalues feeling and emotion, and valorises rational thought. At the same time—and not coincidentally—our patriarchal, Enlightenment culture assigns rational thought to men, and feelings and emotion to women.
Therefore, feminist philosophers and scientists have taken aim at the Cartesian bias, and argued that the feeling and emotion are just as important as conscious rational thought. Some titles below. Note: Martha Nussbaum is one of the most important philosophers of the 20th century.
The Rationality of Feeling
Martha Nussbaum
Nussbaum, a prominent philosopher and public intellectual, explores the ways in which emotion and feeling are essential to human rationality and moral judgment. She argues that emotions like compassion, love, and grief are not just irrational impulses, but crucial components of how we understand ourselves and the world.
The Autonomy of Affect
Patricia Clough
Clough, a feminist theorist, examines the increasing prominence of affect, sensation, and feeling in contemporary culture and politics. She investigates how affective capacities are central to social and political life, challenging traditional notions of subjectivity, agency, and rationality.
Phenomenology of Emotional Experience
Sara Heinämaa
Heinämaa draws on the phenomenological tradition to provide an in-depth analysis of the structure and meaning of human emotional life. She explores how emotions are interwoven with perception, embodiment, and intersubjective relations.
The Feeling Body: Affective Science Meets the Enactive Mind
Giovanna Colombetti
Colombetti takes ideas from the enactive approach developed over the last twenty years in cognitive science and philosophy of mind and applies them for the first time to affective science—the study of emotions, moods, and feelings. She argues that enactivism entails a view of cognition as not just embodied but also intrinsically affective, and she elaborates on the implications of this claim for the study of emotion in psychology and neuroscience.
The Feeling of Value: Moral Realism Grounded in Phenomenal Consciousness
Sharon Hewitt Rawlette
For the past hundred years, ethical theorists have primarily looked for value in external states of affairs or reduced value to a projection of the mind onto these same external states of affairs. The result, unsurprisingly, is widespread antirealism about ethics. Sharon Hewitt Rawlette turns our metaethical gaze inward and dares us to consider that value, rather than being something “out there,” is a quality woven into the very fabric of our conscious experience, in a highly objective way.
Philosophy of Emotion: A Contemporary Introduction
Christine Tappolet
The book includes discussions of the alleged irrationality of emotions, and looks into the question of whether emotions could not, in some cases, contribute positively to theoretical and practical rationality. In addition, the role of emotions in the theory of virtues and the theory of values receives a detailed treatment. Finally, the book turns to the question of how we can regulate and even educate our emotions by engaging with music and with narrative art.
True to Our Feelings: What Our Emotions Are Really Telling Us 1st Edition
Robert C. Solomon
Solomon provides a guide to this cutting-edge research, as well as to what others—philosophers and psychologists—have said on the subject, he also emphasizes the personal and ethical character of our emotions. He shows that emotions are not something that happen to us, nor are they irrational in the literal sense—rather, they are judgements we make about the world, and they are strategies for living in it.