Pathetic Fallacies & Category Mistakes: making sense and non-sense of the (near-future) Sentient City

“Sentience” as a concept has long been a flash point of controversy between the humanities and sciences when non-human actors are concerned. Ruskin coined the term “Pathetic Fallacy” in 1856 to signify any description of inanimate things that ascribes to them human capabilities, sensations, and emotions. His translation of the Latin phrase “natura abhorret a vacuo” (nature abhors a vacuum) is widely known, and even deployed