We now pass to the second objection. It will be said: "Has not this argument proved too much? It has shown that an act of thought can be not only performed at an instant but sustained over a lapse of time; not only sustained, but revived; not only revived in the experience of the same mind but (on pain of solipsism) re-enacted in another's. But this does not prove the possibility of history. For that, we must be able not only to re-enact another's thought but also to know that the thought we are enacting is his. But so far as we re-enact it, it becomes our own; it is merely as our own as we perform it and are aware of it in the performance; it has become subjective, but for that very reason it has ceased to be objective; become present and ceased to be past. This indeed is just what Oakeshott has explicitly maintained in his doctrine that the architect only arranges sub specie praeteritorum what is in reality his own present experience, and what Croce in effect admits when he says that all history is contemporary history.
R. G. Collingwood, The Idea of History (New York: Oxford University Press, 1994), p. 298.
William Strickland, Second Bank of the United States, 1819-24, Philadelphia.
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Re: [Re:] enactment
2000.02.18 15:27
Brian asks:
Does this mean that typological architecture falls within the domain of reenactionary architecture, wherein there is a precedent / original (enactment) to be copied again and again--does originality pose any problem, such as finding the correct original from which to base the reenactment on? For example, the Parthenon has been said to be copied by bank typologies. Aesthetically, the Parthenon is not a unique building type as far as I known, it shares common traits with other Greek temple architecture, thus the problem of finding an original might be one of a mythical original or first ideal form.
How does reenactionary architecture deal with this issue?
Steve replies:
Bank is a typology.
Temple is a typology.
Greek temples are a specific category of the temple typology.
The Parthenon is a specific Greek temple.
Some, but definitely not all, banks reenact Greek temples, and probably quite a small number of banks specifically reenact the Parthenon.
Perhaps typology is basically an exercise in the reenactment of architectural abstractions.
When it come to mythical origins and first ideal forms, it is worthwhile to ask if the mythical origins and the first ideal forms are themselves reenactments. For example, the manifestation of Shiva reenacts metabolism. Moreover, might not Plato's ideal forms [like his Socratic dialogues] also be reenactments (albeit highly abstracted)? Perhaps Plato's perfect circle 'ideally' reenacts the pupils of our eyes and Plato's perfect triangle 'ideally' reenacts the nose on our face.
Perhaps all abstractions are highly idealized reenactments of reality, rather than reality being a reenactment of highly idealized abstractions.
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