Technometry

Ames defines  type as things created and ruled by God or (secondarily) things created or conceived by humans in imitation of God. Type is "that in which all art shines and from which its principles, which produce human understanding, are gathered by man." God creates a thing, and from it shines arts and principles which help us to understand the arts and the thing itself. Then we use the arts to imitatively create and these works of creation bring glory to God. To understand this further, I recommend the illustrations in this article by David Hill Scott: http://www.leaderu.com/aip/docs/scott.html Theses 50-54 deal with metaphysics. Ames attacks scholastic metaphysics and he makes a logical case that the field of metaphysics was overstepping its rightful bounds ("put its sickle into a harvest not its own").  He says that the arts themselves, and by implication his theory of technometry, ought to replace much of metaphysics' stolen ground. He also has a long

Thesis 1. Art is the idea of eupraxia or good action, methodically delineated by universal rules. Beginning with thesis 38, Ames focuses on the last part of his definition of art: methodically delineated by universal rules.  ...methodically delineated...   Since arts are governing ideas, force is assumed by their governance.  Ames says that the best-known force of art is its delineations.  What is a delineation?  It is an accurate representation, picture, or outline of something.  A map is an example of a delineation of a country.  A biography is a delineation of a character.  Each art has many delineations.  Even though each art is singularly conceived by God, each is unraveled and perceived by us in many different ways. The representative matter, or delineations, of each art represents the good work of each art "faithfully and without any deceit" (thesis 38).  We can get a clear picture of the arts conceived by God by studying the representative matter.  We can get a

While on vacation a couple of weeks ago, I visited an unbelieving family member.  He explained to me his belief that humanity moved from riding on horseback 200 years ago, to using smartphones now, because space aliens intervened and gave us secret technological knowledge.  But I've found a better explanation for modern tech than space aliens. Ames' Technometry provides a bridge (one of several, but an important one) from the medieval world to our modern, technologically advanced era.  This section on euprattomenon is the girder of this bridge.  The Puritans were adamant that good works must come from good ideas.  Ames taught that since a rational God created good works, we humans can study His rationality and use that knowledge to create good works.  And beyond basic morality, good works produce good  things.   Puritans encouraged the creation of systems of knowledge so that people could learn concrete bodies of knowledge (science), along with the liberal arts, in as efficie

In theses 22-30 of Technometry, Ames explains his reasoning for listing the eupraxiae , and the liberal arts, in the order that he does.  It's important to note that he doesn't list them in the order in which they ought to be studied, but in order of specialty and dependency.  Some arts cannot exist without other arts.  Some arts become concrete in other arts.  For example, you can't do physics without math.  So Ames lists math before physics because physics depends on math, but math doesn't depend upon physics.  While this implies that we ought to learn math before physics, it becomes a bit more complicated when we look at trivium rather than the quadrivium. Here is Ames's order of the arts and their defined eupraxiae: 1. Logic, for discoursing (arguing and reasoning). 2. Grammar, for speaking. 3. Rhetoric, for communicating. 4. Mathematics (arithmetic and geometry), for measuring. 5. Physics, for doing the work of nature. 6. Theology, for living. The Pu

Art is the idea of eupraxia . - Technometry, Thesis 1, William Ames Eupraxia means "good action." Specifically, eupraxia is good, principled analysis and acts of creation. Eupraxia is both the object and culmination of the liberal arts.  Each art is an idea that represents something, and as such, it directs action.  An art culminates in a good action - not because the purpose of an art is to rule our behavior, but because that is the nature of an art.  That's just what ideas do. In thesis 15, Ames goes metaphysical and gives his answer to the question of the "one and the many." Lee Gibbs gives a brief explanation of Ames's argument which helped me begin to sort it out.  Ames says that art is one unique and simple act in the being and work of God. But it works out like a refraction of rays from God as many concrete, divisible created things. So the art exercised by man is also refracted and divided.  One God; several liberal arts. There are two part

William Ames defines art as a mental form or idea, and then he defines it by what it is not. First, Ames says that every person who acts does so because of a form, or idea, which preexists in himself. He gives the example of an architect who builds a house.  The architect already has the idea of a house in his mind before he begins to build it. There are two ways a person can act from an idea.  One is according to his inherent nature and the other is according to counsel, or via his intellect. This definition of art as idea reminds me of the famous "definition of a horse" scene from Dickens' Hard Times.  "Girl Number Twenty" couldn't prove to Mr. Gradgrind's satisfaction that she knew what a horse is.  She couldn't communicate the idea of a horse by simply listing facts about horses. Clearly, she had a good idea of what a horse was since she was a good rider and had grown up with circus horses. But Mr. Gradgrind said that "Girl Number Tw

Technometry, which adequately circumscribes the Boundaries and the Ends of all the Arts and of every individual Art - William Ames The "arts" Ames is discussing are the liberal arts, which include grammar, logic, rhetoric, math, physics, and theology. His first thesis is that an art is an idea of good action, specifically defined by universal rules.  In thesis three, Ames explains that an art is: a model to represent an action, formed in the mind of a person, before he needs to act, for the purpose of acting correctly. Elsewhere he says that art is the regular disposition or instruction of a thing, in existence and operation, agreeably to its end. The art of grammar, for example, is a model of action taught to students in order to form in their minds the representation of the right action they should take when reading or writing.  Ames clarifies that an art is not a subject .  For example, the art of grammar is applied to the subject of languages and it may g