The city : an urban cosmology / Joseph Grange.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Grange, Joseph, 1940-

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Urban ecology (Sociology).

Sociology, Urban.

City and town life.

Physical Description:

xxxvii, 267 pages ; 23 cm

Place of Publication:

Albany, N.Y. : State University of New York Press, [1999]

Summary:

Continuing the argument of Grange's highly acclaimed Nature, this book develops a theory of good urban growth and development that involves both the physical and the cultural dimensions of city life. The City offers a "Cityscape" that illuminates the central importance of place in urban experience, and it also constructs a radically new "Urban Semiotics" that opens up novel ways to measure the effect media have on human experience. In applying the thought of Peirce, Mead, Dewey, and Whitehead to the contemporary city, Grange reasserts American philosophy's classical purpose--to make a real difference in the concrete lives of human beings.

"This brilliant sequel to Nature establishes Grange as one of the leading systematic philosophers of our time. Extending categories introduced generally in that book to interpret the natural world, which of course includes the urban, Grange here makes the categories specific to the city with imaginative and insightful interpretations of urban space, time, place, value, meaning, intelligence, community, justice, and even the place of the philosopher in the city (and the city in the philosopher--remember Plato's Phaedrus). Perhaps the most brilliant structural argument here is Grange's use of Peirce's categories of Firstness, Secondness, and Thirdness to analyze equality, collision, and continuity in the city.

Contents:

Introduction Cosmology and Urban Culture xv

Process and Urban Values xv

The Categoreal Scheme xix

Urban Semiotics xxv

Normative Consciousness xxxii

Plan of This Study xxxiv

Part 1 Cityscape

Chapter 1 Urban Space 3

The Inscape of Urban Space 3

The Patterns of Urban Space 5

The Symbolic Perception of Urban Space 7

The Felt Transmission of Urban Spatial Values 12

Chapter 2 Urban Time 21

The Inscape of City Time 21

The Patterns of City Time 24

The Symbolic Perception of Urban Time 30

The Value of City Time 32

Chapter 3 Urban Place 41

The Doctrine of Normative Measure 41

Space and Time All-at-Once 49

A Beautiful Place Is Always One and True 53

A Still Place 59

Chapter 4 Urban Goodness 63

Kevin Lynch and Normative Measure 63

Three Normative Measures 65

Alexander's New Theory of Urban Design 68

The Goodness of the City 70

Part 2 Urban Semiotics

Chapter 5 Mood, Order, and Sign 81

Survival 81

Habit 85

Growth 88

Felt Intelligence 92

Chapter 6 The Sign of One/Qualitative Value 99

The Importance of One 100

The Iconography of the City 103

The Street 107

Original Feelings of Freshness 115

Chapter 7 The Sign of Two/Collision 121

Secondness 122

The Urban Index 124

Empire Skyline 127

The Collisions of the Actual 130

Chapter 8 The Sign of Three/Continuity 137

Involvement 137

The Urban Symbol 140

The Neighborhood 143

Inclusion 149

Part 3 Urban Praxis

Chapter 9 Intelligence-in-Action 159

Symbolism 159

Communication 161

Meaning 164

Intelligence-in-Action 167

Chapter 10 Community 175

Something in between 176

Making Connections 179

Sharing Symbols 182

Community Is Democracy 186

Chapter 11 City Justice 193

Market Place or City Place? 194

The Theology of the Invisible Hand 198

Self-Rule 200

City Justice Is Democratic Community 203

Chapter 12 The Philosopher and the City 209

A Fair and Fitting City 210

One Thought/Many Feelings/Three Signs 215

The Philosopher as Master of Heartfelt Contrast 224

American Philosophy at Work 230.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 253-259) and index.

ISBN:

0791442039

0791442047

OCLC:

39639985