Harmos · Psephos · Prologue · In Preparation
Setting the Keystone
Where the two prequels are joined
by James Wolstencroft
An arch is 2 arguments leaning into each other. Neither column can stand on its own conclusion: Phronesis ends knowing that a state must learn from its record, and cannot say how. Seira ends holding a record that cannot be lost, and cannot say who should be made to keep one. This paper is the stone set where the 2 arcs meet.
Harmos is the mason’s word for that joint: the fitting where 2 stones take each other’s weight (harmonia grew from it, which is rather the point). The paper takes the lesson and the instrument together and derives the design brief for the traceable state: what must be recorded, who must be able to read it, and the asymmetry that governs the glass, transparency for power, privacy for people.
The 5 rungs of Psephos then build what this paper specifies, beginning from rule itself.
Hands forward to Holding the Record: the ladder begins at rule.
In preparation, unpublished at the time of writing. This page holds the shape of the argument while the paper is written.