The Changing Faces of Space

Description

This book focuses on various concepts of space and their historical evolution. In particular, it examines the variations that have modified the notions of place, orientation, distance, vacuum, limit, bound and boundary, form and figure, continuity and contingence, in order to show how spatial characteristics are decisive in a range of contexts: in the determination and comprehension of exteriority; in individuation and identification; in defining the meaning of nature and of the natural sciences; in aesthetical formations and representations; in determining the relationship between experience, behavior and environment; and in the construction of mental and social subjectivity. Accordingly, the book offers a comprehensive review of concepts of space as formulated by Kant, Husserl, Heidegger, Einstein, Heisenberg, Penrose and Thorne, subsequently comparing them to notions developed more recently, in the current age, which Foucault dubbed the age of space. The book is divided into four distinct yet deeply interconnected parts, which explore the space of life, the space of experience, the space of science and the space of the arts. Front Matter ....Pages i-xiii Front Matter ....Pages 1-1 The Space of the Living Beings. Umwelt and Space in Jakob von Uexküll (Luca Guidetti)....Pages 3-17 Technology and Oikologia: Ethics and Ontology (Eugenio Mazzarella)....Pages 19-34 On the Emergence of Thymic Space in Ludwig Binswanger (Stefano Besoli)....Pages 35-55 The Other’s Place in the Space of the Relation: Karl Löwith and Martin Buber as Theorists of Duheit (Agostino Cera)....Pages 57-73 Phenomenology of Imaginal Space (Michela Summa)....Pages 75-99 Commentary to Part 1: The Space of Life (Ricardo Ibarlucía)....Pages 101-105 Front Matter ....Pages 107-107 Giving a New Meaning to Space (Maria Teresa Catena)....Pages 109-123 Geometric and Intuitive Space in Husserl (Vincenzo Costa)....Pages 125-137 Antinomies of Measure. Phenomenology and Spatial Continuity (Husserl, Becker, Weyl) (Felice Masi)....Pages 139-163 The Space Spaces: From the Analytic of the Open to the Topology of the Site in Heideggerian Philosophy (Simona Venezia)....Pages 165-180 Commentary to Part 2: The Space of Experience (Pedro M. S. Alves)....Pages 181-191 Front Matter ....Pages 193-193 Is a Space Interval a Set of Infinite Points? A Very Old Question (Vincenzo Fano, Pierluigi Graziani)....Pages 195-205 Topology and Topophilia: Bachelardian Space Between Philosophy and Poetics (Fabrizio Palombi)....Pages 207-218 The End of Space as Entity (Gianluca Giannini)....Pages 219-234 The Conditions of Possibility of Scientific Experience: Cassirer’s Interpretation of the Theory of Relativity (Luigi Laino)....Pages 235-254 Commentary to Part 3: The Space of Sciences (Jean Dhombres)....Pages 255-256 Front Matter ....Pages 257-257 Chora—topos: First Notes on Cosmological Aesthetics (Dario Giugliano)....Pages 259-275 From Trust to Body. Artspace, Prestige, Sensitivity (Filippo Fimiani)....Pages 277-288 Invert It If You Want to Understand It. Left and Right in the Mythic and Aesthetic Space (Andrea Pinotti)....Pages 289-303 The City to Come. Lines of Flight from Deleuze to Koolhaas (Francesco Vitale)....Pages 305-314 Commentary to Part 4: Space of Arts (Ronald Shusterman)....Pages 315-318 Back Matter ....Pages 319-327