The body and the intellect: division of our main faculties

Img. 4 Engraving by Prévost Fécit (1756) illustrating a craftsman measuring stone - Edited by the author. possession and the workshop-possession of knowledge”12 . According to Ryle, knowledge emerging from the domain of memory can only deal with facts which he calls the Knowing That, whereas knowledge deriving from experience is able to show the way things are done, in other words, the Knowing How.

Although the aforementioned Architecture, Masonry plate seems to transmit knowledge, – which is the primary aim of the Encyclopaedia13 (1765) – it overpasses a third epistemological dimension: the Tacit Knowledge. The Masonry plate tries to transmit knowledge through graphic expressions; yet, by nature, the third dimension of knowledge cannot be expressed through illustrations, words, or any other expression. The philosopher and chemist, Michael Polanyi contends in his book The Tacit Dimension14 (1966) that “we can know more than we can tell”15. The technical knowledge of knowing how to do things can primarily be transmitted by experience and physical trials. The plate fails to communicate all the necessary knowledge in the understanding of what is to build a brick wall and how to build it. The tableau vivant showcases craftsmen working with stone in different ways. For instance, the craftsman situated in the foreground seems to measure stone but one cannot know how to measure the stone, how to use the measuring tool or to which end the stone is measured by examining the visual content (Img.4). Does the drawing illustrate a worker measuring the stone to set dimensions before it being cut, or is he measuring it to verify the dimensions of the block after being cut? Therefore, we can argue that the Architecture, Masonry plate is an impractical apparatus in the transmission of technical knowledge; betraying the Encyclopaedia’s practical knowledge dissemination aim. Nevertheless, through a deeper reading of the Masonry plate, we can demonstrate its underlying character of being a propagandic object that spreads the Enlightenment ideologies through the tableau vivant.

12. Ryle, Knowing How and Knowing That: The Presidential Address, 16. 13. d’Alembert, Encyclopaedia, or a Systematic Dictionary of the Sciences, Arts, and Crafts. 14. Polanyi, The Tacit Dimension, 3-25. 15. Polanyi, The Tacit Dimension, 4.

Reason of The Enlightened Plate

The body and the intellect: division of our main faculties

Through the explanation of Arts and Crafts, the Encyclopaedia16 (1765) spread the Enlightenment ideologies and has been a political object in which the plates reveal to be subjacent propaganda devices. The tableau vivant in Architecture, Masonry plate is sequenced and designed in a way that clearly shows the will to communicate a meliorative vision of the Enlightenment and its values. The symmetrical composition of the tableau vivant conveys an opposition between the right side (Img.5) which shows the traditional, rural lifestyle and the right side (Img.6) which characterises the progress brought by the Enlightenment. The opposition is enhanced by the use of light and shadow. The right side is shaded by the modernity of the construction on the left side which is much brighter. The passage from darkness, viz. ignorance is done through scientific knowledge represented by the craftsmen situated in the very middle of the tableau vivant. The craftsmen in the centre of the scene are the only ones using scientific tools; they act like the transition from rural to urban, roughness to crafted, and manual to mechanical. They perhaps represent the thinker, in other words, the architect of the construction site. In this regard, one can draw parallels between the XVIIIth century and Antiquity – notably, with the Ancient Greek style façade in the background suggesting Antiquity.

Both periods have been the cornerstone of division between the Body and the Intellect. In Ancient Greece, the passage from timber to stone symbolised the moment when somebody had to think in order for somebody else to do the physical work, the moment when geometry and math started to be intellectualised and theoreticised (Img.7). This division of theory and labour saw its reproduction in the XVIIIth century when the craftsmen became pacified subjects – almost objects – and no longer genesis of knowledge.

Img. 6 Engraving by Prévost Fécit (1756) illustrating a wooden portico and a Church in the horizon - Edited by the author.

16. d’Alembert, Encyclopedia, or a Systematic Dictionary of the Sciences, Arts, and Crafts. Img. 5 Engraving by Prévost Fécit (1756) showing craftsmen and an Ancient Greek façade with columns, a pediment, and ornaments - Edited by the author.

Img. 7 Diagram showing the compositional analysis of the tableau vivant – Author’s analysis.

The aim of the Encyclopaedia’s (1765) authors was to transmit practical knowledge not only to their contemporaries but also to future generations. The Eencyclopaedic project ends out to be an intellectual gathering of practical knowledge. Intellectual because it organises, connects, and divides knowledge in sections; it proposes a written part : the dictionary ; and a graphic part: the plates. Moreover, the whole human knowledge is synthesised in a three-entry grid called Map of the System of Human Knowledge17 (Img.8) & (Appendix B). The grid represents the general distribution of human knowledge into history, which is related to memory; into philosophy, which emanates from reason; and into poetry, which arises from imagination. Surprisingly enough, if the Architecture, Masonry plate’s tableau vivant is mirrored (Img.9), its compositional analysis reveals that it follows the triptical pattern of the Knowledge grid. Into the bargain, although the tableau vivant appears to be drawn the way it is visualised on the plate, it is in fact a lithographic print thus inverted during the printing process.

17.

“Map of The System of Human Knowledge” The Encyclopedia of Diderot & d’Alembert Collaborative Translation Project. Michigan Publishing, University of Michigan Library, accessed December 9, 2021, https://quod.lib.umich.edu/d/did/tree.html.

Img. 8 Diagram indicating how the tableau vivant follows the Map of the System of Human Knowledge grid’s pattern – Edited by the author.

Consequently, the right side composed of elements of the past represents “Memory”, the centre with the focus on the thinkers stands for the “Reason” and the left side of the Tableau Vivant showing a mechanical and architectural environment symbolises progress and secular knowledge which can be related to “Imagination” as it is the ideal to which humanity should tend for from an Enlightenment point of view. This way of schematisation of the knowledge which was until then, disseminated anarchically and mostly available only orally, translates a will of intellectualisation of knowledge. Though, the craftsman is the one that can transmit the know-how of things, the authors of the Encyclopaedia are intellectuals. Consequently, the