http://www.philosophy-index.com/kant/critique_pure_reason/ii_iii.php

I always thought it referred to earthquake-resistant building design, shows how much I know.

Maybe it's an artifact of German-translated-into-English?

Maybe it's an artifact of German-translated-into-English? — Bitter Crank

Neologisms abound in philosophy. Maybe a philosopher's greatness should be measured by the amount of neologisms that are repeated and made into philosophy memes. I vote for my own use of the word "instrumentality".

Maybe it's an artifact of German-translated-into-English? — Bitter Crank

I think the word makes sense also in English, at least via the Greek words 'archi' for 'prime' or 'chief', and 'tectonic' for 'what controls structure and properties', or something like that.

For example, the tectonics of plates in the Earth's crust control the structure and properties of continental drift, the formation of continents, the sea bed, mountains and so on.

In architecture the tectonics of elements and materials control the structure and properties of a building and its components.

In Kant's philosophy it is the tectonics of his conceptual scheme which controls the structure and properties of a systematic study of possible knowledge.

Sounds similar to Adrian Bejan's Constructal Theory which attempts to provide an amendment to the second law of thermodynamics and proposes even flow dynamics can be credited to a mysterious architecture. He's well aware that its a causal perspective that doesn't describe modern physics and, as much as anything, introduces it as a way to generate ideas.

What are the similarities you see between Kant's architectonic of reason and Adrian Bejan's Constructal Theory?

...a mysterious architecture. — wuliheron

The tectonics of Kant's epistemology is not so mysterious, it can be credited a collection of basic concepts and their logical relations to each other, which forms and controls the structure and properties of his epistemology. Likewise, the tectonics of a building can be credited its elements and materials and how they have been put together, which forms and controls the structure and properties of the building.

While the "architecture" of Constructal Theory is vague, its systems logic and epistemology are not the least bit vague. He shows how geometry and change can both be derived from this "architecture" and how its related to the Golden Ratio somehow and can provide the arrow of time as well. Rocks rolling downhill will become smaller and more humble over time and push flatter rocks out of the way until they can build up to an avalanche and later convey heat and water within the soil efficiently enough to support life as we know it. The same thing for rivers and streams that either evolve to support the efficient flow of any subsequent streams or become replaced altogether.

You can think of it as also expressing the principle that for any truth to thrive and endure it must support each subsequent truth it leads to. The earth was thought to be flat and this can be considered a limited truth that had to be adapted to the eventual discovery that the world is round, however, it was not very adaptable to the idea and had to be replaced altogether. Hence, our private intuition and sensory information inform our worldviews as we grow and evolve over time with those that are more adaptable or timeless or whatever persisting the longest.

It also fits in with Donald Hoffman's discovery that, according to game theory, if the human mind and brain had ever resembled anything remotely like reality we would have become extinct as a species long ago. Its the idea that we use analog logic first and derive more formal logic from our sense impressions and, you could say, the map is not the territory, but merely an imitation.

It's the noumenon of the phenomenon we call architecture, which can only be known without the use of ordinary sense perception.

What I was asking, though, is what similarities you see between Kant's archictectonic of reason & Constructal Theory

They're both causal theories that use this sort of geometric approach. Relativity is geometric as well and, from my point of view, its simply because classical causal approaches are so simplistic they lend themselves better to geometric perspectives. Theoretically, Intuitionistic mathematics can do better, but they're four times a complex. Its something I have difficulty explaining to people who don't understand systems logic or metaphoric logic, that geometry alone is insufficient for describing everything observable and attempts to isolate space from time or reconcile the two causally will inevitably produce nonsensical, mystical, or just plain worthless answers such as everything is fated.

What do you mean by Kant's architectonic being a 'causal theory'?

His philosophy is derived from Plato's forms and merely extends it to the idea of a causal systems logic. That is, that rational laws rule the universe and must give rise to rational thought. I'd compare him to Aristotle in that regard, much too literal minded.

Would you say that his notion of the architectonic is particularly compromised by this causal approach relative to the rest of his philosophy?