Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction: the influence of place
- 1 The obscurity of place
- 2 The structure of spatiality
- 3 Holism, content and self
- 4 Unity, locality and agency
- 5 Agency and objectivity
- 6 Self and the space of others
- 7 The unity and complexity of place
- 8 Place, past and person
- Conclusion: the place of philosophy
- Bibliography
- Index
2 - The structure of spatiality
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction: the influence of place
- 1 The obscurity of place
- 2 The structure of spatiality
- 3 Holism, content and self
- 4 Unity, locality and agency
- 5 Agency and objectivity
- 6 Self and the space of others
- 7 The unity and complexity of place
- 8 Place, past and person
- Conclusion: the place of philosophy
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
Any thinker who has an idea of an objective spatial world … must be able to think of his perception of the world as simultaneously due to his position in the world, and to the condition of the world at that position. The very idea of a perceivable, objective, spatial world brings with it the idea of the subject as being in the world with the course of his perceptions due to his changing position in the world and to the more-or-less stable way the world is.
Gareth Evans, The Varieties of ReferenceIt is only when we begin to examine the way in which thinking creatures like ourselves find themselves in the world, and organise their activities in that world, that the limitations in viewing space only in the terms which it figures in physical theory or as it is ‘objectively’ conceived – particularly in the form in which it appears in much modern philosophical discussion – become clearly apparent. As Ernst Mach notes, in discussing the difference between ‘physiological’ and ‘geometric’ space, ‘Of cardinal and greatest importance to animals are the parts of their own body and their relations to one another … Geometric space embraces only the relations of physical bodies to one another, and leaves the animal body this connection altogether out of account.’
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Place and ExperienceA Philosophical Topography, pp. 44 - 71Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1999