The Spatialization of Problem and Inquiry, Review of Problem Spaces by Celia Lury – SPACE AND CULTURE

Celia Lury’s Problem Spaces opens with Whitehead’s grand and misunderstood statement on power and aesthetics: “Power is the compulsion of composition… the essence of power is the drive towards aesthetic worth for its own sake” (Whitehead 1968:119; see Shields and Hardy 2021). There is a compulsion to compose the world from indefinite and indeterminate to definite situations. Hence “compositional methodology” considers forms and transformation of these arrangements. Whitehead’s reference to “aesthetics” is misunderstood as he is not referencing just capital-A aesthetics of art but aesthesis, the collective experience of a context or event, including its degree of organized harmony or indeterminacy. Lury begins by considering the co-constitution of inquiries and their problems. Lury builds from Herbert Simon’s ‘problem spaces’ and William James Logic of Inquiry. These are problematics that elicit inquiry and the formulation of problems based on how these “situations” are encountered

by Rob Shields (Univ. of Alberta) Celia Lury’s Problem Spaces opens with Whitehead’s grand and misunderstood statement on power and aesthetics: “Power is the compulsion of composition… the essence of power is the drive towards aesthetic worth for its own sake” (Whitehead 1968:119; see Shields and Hardy 2021). There is a compulsion to compose the world from indefinite and indeterminate to definite situations. Hence “compositional methodology” considers forms and transformation of these arrangements. Whitehead’s reference to “aesthetics” is misunderstood as he is not referencing just capit

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