From the Architectonics of Pure Reason to the Architecture of Digital Systems

Abstract

The paper analyzes the use of the term “architectonics” and its applicability in the actual philosophical language. The use of the words “architecture” and “architectonics” in the title of the article, which at the first glance seems to be “tautological”, is used by the authors intentionally serving as a challenge to that part of contemporary international humanitarian knowledge, especially concerning the infosphere and the digital environments, where these two terms are often used interchangeably.  The Kantian semantic content of the concept “architectonics” is considered as a source for the creation of relevant concepts in the philosophy of architecture of the digital era: both as an art form and as the architecture of AI and other digital systems, which are characterized by higher-order metaphysics. To substantiate such reasoning, the content of Italian studies on the “metaphysics of architecture” (G. Vattimo), “philosophy of information” (L. Floridi), “theory of the project” (M. Ferraris, A. Armando, G. Durbiano), “unified philosophy of physical and mathematical objects” (M. Barison), “philosophy of the sensory city” (C. Ratti), among others, are used. The “architectonics of the science” is related to the modern understanding of meaning (“ideas of reason”) and, in particular, it can be applied to the “architecture” and “architectures” of AI and other complex systems for a logical exit to the non-logical justification of thinking. The article will be of interest to media philosophers, anthropologists, architects and digital culture theorists.