Technical problems (a computer that died last week) means that I’m not able to show further developments this month.
I had been going back to basics, attempting to find 3-D shapes that might convey the five philosophical branches more appropriately (rather than spheres throughout). I started with Epistemology as a 3-D golden conic-spiral, Metaphysics as simply it’s background shape (extending boundlessly outside the picture frame). I was rather happy with these two, especially as a zoom-into shell-like Epistemology would continue to reveal the presence of Metaphysics, yet ‘seen from the inside-out’. However, finding an apt shape for Ethics (as well as Politics and Æsthetics) to fit in with this duo was more taxing.
Another spiral, entwined with Epistemology, was one plausible option for Ethics (demonstrating how one’s ethics develops along with one’s knowledge about reality), yet I was also seeking to differentiate each shape. If the Epistemology spiral was rounded (a spiralling conic tube), then Ethics might be its involute form, so both objects together would form a solid cone — how best to act in reality ‘coating’ our growing knowledge about reality.
However, these shapes are already challenging to keep in one’s head — after all, a key criteria is that these forms can be readily imagined.
Moreover, the gap between what the five branches of philosophy actually mean and what a mere visual is able to convey still seems as wide as ever!