Epistry

The foundation. Rooms: Socratus, Gallery, and two bays still empty.

I believe we are experiencing a shift in the dominant metaphor for knowledge. In the past we talked about knowledge as a solid, with attendant concerns such as security and certainty. In the future, our dominant metaphor for knowledge will be that of a fluid, supple and adaptive. That shift will have consequences for the architecture of knowledge, from epistemology to pedagogy and policy.

If knowledge is changing shape, philosophy has to change how it works too.

I think we are in the middle of a major shift in which philosophy is developing a new interface (a new API in geek speak) — with design and engineering alongside the older interfaces to science, religion and literature. That interface mirrors the shift toward synthesis from analysis: to know is to make.

Design will be the universal organizing principle of philosophy in the 21st century, replacing logic which performed that function from the late nineteenth century until now.

For years I called this philosophical engineering. Then I went back to an older word of mine.

I want to revisit the term “philosophical engineering” with the intent of replacing it with a new term that not only encompasses philosophical engineering, but also methods from design and speculation, and the use of new cognitive technologies, i.e., AI as Augmented Intelligence.

That term is Epistry.

Epistry is philosophy for a synthetic age, where we don’t just study the world, but make it. Or to put it in computational terms:

Epistry is philosophy when it becomes executable.

At the risk of being reductive, Aristotle inspires my head, while Nagarjuna touches my heart. Their fusion makes for a vibe, a mood, an atmosphere more than a theory or a doctrine that I hope the second-in-commands would approve and adopt if they were alive today.

Making is never a solo job, which is why the first room down here is a studio.

Socratus is the organization I founded, a planetary studio where citizens, scientists and artists work on problems too big for any one of them.

Room on this floor: Socratus

Next door is the Gallery, a hillside of objects, each one opening onto a passage of mine.

Room on this floor: Gallery