Research

  • Philosophy of Architecture: An Analytic Approach
  • GRANTEE
    Saul Fisher
    GRANT YEAR
    2009

Philosophy of Architecture comprises a set of research projects representing a range of philosophical explorations of architecture—its phenomena, manifestations, concepts, and practices. These groundbreaking studies look at architecture from the perspective of the dominant analytic or Anglo-American tradition in Western philosophy; prior work in philosophy of architecture is generally modeled on the Continental philosophical tradition. These studies are intended to introduce to practitioners, scholars, and students an array of foundational issues for architects, architecture researchers, and philosophers. These include the conceptual difficulties underlying architectural practice and the challenges architecture poses—as an artform, and broader cultural and social phenomenon—for traditional analytic aesthetics and philosophy of art. Saul Fisher has synthesized and further developed his work in this new domain of research for both architectural and philosophical scholarship.

Saul Fisher is interim associate provost for academic standards and research and visiting associate professor of philosophy at Mercy College. Before joining Mercy College, Fisher was associate provost and adjunct associate professor of philosophy at Hunter College (2009–10), director of fellowship programs of the American Council of Learned Societies (2005–09), and program officer at the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation (1998–2005). Fisher received a BA in political science and philosophy from Columbia University, an MA in philosophy from Rice University, and a PhD in philosophy from the CUNY Graduate School, and studied at the CNRS in Paris on a Fulbright award. He has written on the philosophy of architecture in the Journal of Architectural Education, Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, and Newsletter of the American Society of Aesthetics. He is a past member of the American Philosophical Association Committees on Non-Academic Careers and on the Status and Future of the Profession.