Gerald A. Gutenschwager

Gutenschwager, Gerald A

Gutenschwager, Gerald A

Emeritus Professor, School of Architecture, Washington University, St. Louis, MO, USA; Scientific Fellow, Department of Regional Planning and Development,
University of Thessaly, Volos, Greece

Job Title: 

Emeritus Professor, School of Architecture, Washington University, St. Louis, MO, USA; Scientific Fellow, Department of Regional Planning and Development,
University of Thessaly, Volos, Greece

Formal education and experience have focused on research, education and administration in relation to planning, international development, urbanization, and health. These concerns have prompted investigations and experiments in social theory,planning theory, educational gaming and simulation, social change, time budgets, the political economy of health and the philosophy of social science.Additional research has focused on modernism and postmodernism as expressed in social theory, urbanism and architecture. Practical work experience has ranged from a city planning department in the U.S. (Chicago) to an extensive tenure with public and private agencies and offices overseas in Athens, Greece.Teaching experience has ranged from junior high to graduate school and with students from all of the continents over a sixty year period since the 1950s. Publications include numerous articles, reviews and presentations, as well as two books: The Political Economy of Health in Modern Greece (1989), Athens, Greece: The National Center of Social Research (in Greek), and Planning and Social Science; a Humanistic Approach (2004). Lanham, MD: University Press of America, also published in Greek by The University of Thessaly Publications, Volos, Greece

ARTICLES BY THIS AUTHOR

Biology and Society: A Holistic View
Get Full Text in PDF Abstract Does biology influence society? Yes, but in a very complex and non-deterministic manner. As both biology and society are emergent systems, they must be constantly researched to understand how they are changing. Thus, the two inescapable biological requirements for survival and reproduction must be studied in a dialectical manner in order to understand how they are evolving. Consciousness has arisen to aid in survival, and consciousness has brought forth the need...
Epicurus, Death and the Need for Power
Get Full Text in PDF Abstract Culture seeks to explain our existence in the universe and to provide information about how any given society should be structured in that universe. This structure consists of a set of roles and moral rules that should be followed in that society. Human beings are the only creatures who have sufficient consciousness to establish elaborate institutions to deal with the unfortunate reality of their death. Most cultures in the world have sought to avoid this reality...
Understanding Society: The Interplay of Reason and Emotion
…the assumption behind [scientific] consensus is that science is a source of authority. Rather, it is a particularly effective approach to inquiry and analysis. Skepticism is essential to science; consensus is foreign. To expect agreement on all or many aspects of a multifaceted issue would be unreasonable. (Professor Richard Lindzen of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology) Get Full Text in PDF Abstract Understanding society requires incorporating all of its human dimensions, including...
Planning as the Art of Collective Anticipation*
Get Full Text in PDF Abstract The definition of planning changed several times over the course of the 20th century. Anticipation, on the other hand, is a new science, though the problems that it confronts are as old as humankind. As a science it must confront the fuzzy reality that defies the usual mechanistic search for linear causal relationships that would allow an anticipated future to be manipulated and controlled. Anticipation as art could, on the other hand, incorporate those dimensions...
Predation, Gender and our Anthropological Oxymoron
Get Full Text in PDF Abstract Predation, an inheritance from our biological past, is alive and well. It now takes the form of concern with our place in the social hierarchy, the “social food chain”. Furthermore, it appears in science as the underlying principle of individualism in the free market system in economic theory. Darwinian theory has also been distorted into survival of the strongest, in order to suit the needs of this modern ideology. The deterministic systems of both science and...
Determinism and Reification: The Twin Pillars of the Amoral Society
Get Full Text in PDF Ο δρόμος προς την αρετή ήταν δύσβατος για τον ΗρακλήThe road to virtue was long and difficult for Hercules Abstract The history of ethics is a troubled one. It is often plagued by the twin pillars of determinism and reification. The first is the belief that all things in...
Saint Catherine and the Free Market System: The (Historic) Roots of the Current Crisis
Get Full Text in PDF Abstract The current crisis is rooted in the past, and is related to the ability of empires to ground their conquests in legitimizing icons that are, at the same time, their own creations. The stories of St. Catherine and the ‘free market’ are compared in order to illustrate their common human heritage, embedded as they are in the problem of reification, which is the abiding tendency of humans to assign ‘extraterrestrial’ origins to their very own thoughts, ideas, and...
The Dialectic of Change*
Get Full Text in PDF Abstract The dialectic between opposing forces or ideas takes many forms, but always implies a resolution into some new form or synthesis, as Hegel refers to it. Not all conflict situations, however, are necessarily dialectic, as they may sometimes result in the total destruction of one or both sides of the conflict. The dialectic, when appropriate, is a useful way of understanding the idea of a constantly changing or emerging reality as understood by the new biology....
Is Economics a Value Free Science?
Get Full Text in PDF Abstract Does economics merely study society or does it play a decisive role in creating it? If it does play an important part in creating it, as phenomenology has long maintained and as quantum physics is now claiming about human consciousness and intention in relation to all of nature and society, it is hard to see how economics can claim that it is merely observing and explaining. It is within such a framework...