Neuroscience suggests that space is the common sense. The posterior parietal cortex in the brain is where the sensory modalities come together in a common area, where our integrated map of reality occurs. (See, for example "Multimodal representation of space in the posterior parietal cortex and its us in planning movements," Andersen et al., Annu. Rev. Neurosci, 1997, 20:303-30.) Our "common sense" in one older meaning of that phrase (particularly by Scottish philosophers) is what we can see the truth of when we bring all our senses to it (not what "common people" think -- not lowest common denominator stuff as we take the phrase today).
Laura Otis, in Rethinking Thought: Inside the Minds of Creative Scientists and Artists, quite pointedly differentiates spatial thinking from visual thinking -- where they used to be conflated as "visuo-spatial." Paul Holman's Living Space is a fine round up of more woo-woo spatial realizations. Roger Grainger's The Open Space: Theatre as Opportunity for Living is also excellent. Also consider Gilles Fauconnier's Mappings in Thought and Language; and Ray Jackendoff's positing in recent works that spatial comprehension has a place in the "parallel architecture" complementary to conceptual understanding.
My own view is that Descartes' chief error was to posit that consciousness lacks "extension," e.g. spatial dimension. I believe Max Velmans largely has it right, that consciousness is the space in which we comprehend the world, inseparable from the space the world is comprehended as being in. Then there is Chuang Tzu's suggestion that if we put the mind out (into space), and bring the world in, then the best spirits will come to dwell.
Giddens was chancellor of the LSE when I was there. The whole 3rd way/end of history thing was going on... Blair etc. I was captivated by his ideas about the role of the clock in the making of modernity. But he didn't have too much to say about money. Which is pity - especially given the influence of Simmel. Back then we thought we had money figured out.... it was only after 2008 that it became painfully obvious that we hadn't. And of course the LSE played a big role in bringing money back into the story through Graeber, Dodd and Hart.
Anyway... a rambling way of saying that if one is flirting with modernity then that relationship between money, space and time is really crucial, IMO.
You're taking on a lot, Sir! I mean Simmel is genius but an utter nightmare too.
If you do fancy digging in and fancy a more straightforward route.... Prof Lisa Adkins The Time of Money is great. I think you've mentioned Martyn Konings before? Money as icon? The Time of Money is on the same imprint as Martyn's work. She grooves on Simmel but not enough to give you a headache... Bourdieu is her chief muse. She argues that money is changing our experience of time. Financialized Capitalism as a kind of hyper-modernity.
How does space as territory fit into what you are conceptualising here? Or does it? So often people claim and define space. Our whole human reality revolves around these definitions and claims of ownership. And yet, we’re just here, whatever that here is. This is the thinking around space that I’m exploring, perhaps different than what you describe, perhaps not so different at all.
Good question. Yes, space and ownership. Also I think Guattari speaks of “existential territories”. Lots more to say, but I can see why some believe we need to articulate the importance of space better and more often.
Speaking of Gebser, his work in The Ever-Present Origin should be considered in a discussion that involves space and modernity, as this comes up often in his book, along with looking at time and "dimensions" of consciousness."
In chapter 2 he states that "The achievement of perspective indicates man's discovery and consequent coming to awareness of space, whereas the unrealized perspective indicates that space is dormant in man and that he is not yet awakened to it... Not until the Gothic, the forerunner of the Renaissance was there a shift in emphasis. Before that space is not yet our depth-space, but rather a cavern (and vault), or simply an in-between space; in both instances it is undifferentiated space. "
He goes on to reference Petrarch's "discovery of landscape" when he got a view from the top of Mount Ventoux in 1336, and then hundreds of years later the development of perspectival vision and thought that showed itself in the work of Leonardo Da Vinci.
On page 117 of chapter 4, Gebser provides a table showing the unfolding dimensioning of the consciousness structures, where Archaic is zero-dimensional, pre-spatial and pretemporal; Magic is one-dimensional, spaceless and timeless; Mythical is two-dimensional, spaceless, but with natural temporicity; Mental is three-dimensional, spatial, and abstractly temporal; and Integral is four-dimensional, space-free, and time-free.
There's lots to be said in regards to how Gebser talks about "Measure and Mass" in relation to the Mental structure: "Only an aggregation or quantification - an indication of an exhausted qualitative potency - can guarantee a new mutation which seems to emerge from 'the whole' ..." (p. 130).
In chapter 4 of Part 2 (the 2nd chapter 4), there is a lot more said about the fourth dimension related to the Integral structure, discussing Einstein, non-Euclidean geometry, etc. On page 346, he writes: "And the concept of non-Euclidian geometry in turn is an anticipation, again imaginarily, of the later-realized sphere which is non-fixed, four-dimensional, and free of perspective (i.e. aperspectival) because it is a moving as well as transparent sphere... the four-dimensional sphere, or in geometric terms, space curved by time (!), is the only real basis for actualizing a four-dimensional system of coordinates. The simple sphere is merely three-dimensional; only the moving, transparent sphere is four-dimensional. And only the transparency guarantees the aperspectival perception."
Apologies for the long comment. "I would have made it shorter, but I ran out of time."
I find this one a bit impenetrable Jonathan, as in, I'm not really sure what's being discussed.
Do you know of the conceptual distinction 'egocentris Vs allocentric spatial frames of reference'? Maybe Adrian Moore, maybe others/ too in the analytic philosophy of mind space, latish 20th century. I wonder if it would give some purchase to a discussion of 'space', and more generally a discussion of "common sense concepts" (alluding to a sub stack post I believe you 'liked' but which I can't currently place)? I.e. to a discussion of something like 'how do people understand "Space" in the Modern era if we assume there's something problematic in the Modern understanding?'
Yes, it’s not fully cooked, but I had to take it out of oven nonetheless. I had not expected to get into the metaphysics of space when I ventured in, but my overall endeavour is to probe the intuition that the idea that modernity is ending is not quite right, and I’m collecting ideas like this one (the neglect of space, the forgetting of ether etc) along the way. If I only ever produced full cooked pieces substack would be very difficult. Sometimes you have to publish the sticky ones to clear space for whatever is coming next.
I totally appreciate that question (what are we on about, 'modernity is ending '?) This whole thing ('writing helps people connect with their humanity', for instance, to allude to something you remarked on here in substance) about what the well constructed paragraphs can be hoped to achieve is something I struggle with.
I seem to be doing a lot of (literal) digging (as part of an ongoing house, home, family community building project) these days, keeping me grounded!
Neuroscience suggests that space is the common sense. The posterior parietal cortex in the brain is where the sensory modalities come together in a common area, where our integrated map of reality occurs. (See, for example "Multimodal representation of space in the posterior parietal cortex and its us in planning movements," Andersen et al., Annu. Rev. Neurosci, 1997, 20:303-30.) Our "common sense" in one older meaning of that phrase (particularly by Scottish philosophers) is what we can see the truth of when we bring all our senses to it (not what "common people" think -- not lowest common denominator stuff as we take the phrase today).
Laura Otis, in Rethinking Thought: Inside the Minds of Creative Scientists and Artists, quite pointedly differentiates spatial thinking from visual thinking -- where they used to be conflated as "visuo-spatial." Paul Holman's Living Space is a fine round up of more woo-woo spatial realizations. Roger Grainger's The Open Space: Theatre as Opportunity for Living is also excellent. Also consider Gilles Fauconnier's Mappings in Thought and Language; and Ray Jackendoff's positing in recent works that spatial comprehension has a place in the "parallel architecture" complementary to conceptual understanding.
My own view is that Descartes' chief error was to posit that consciousness lacks "extension," e.g. spatial dimension. I believe Max Velmans largely has it right, that consciousness is the space in which we comprehend the world, inseparable from the space the world is comprehended as being in. Then there is Chuang Tzu's suggestion that if we put the mind out (into space), and bring the world in, then the best spirits will come to dwell.
Giddens was chancellor of the LSE when I was there. The whole 3rd way/end of history thing was going on... Blair etc. I was captivated by his ideas about the role of the clock in the making of modernity. But he didn't have too much to say about money. Which is pity - especially given the influence of Simmel. Back then we thought we had money figured out.... it was only after 2008 that it became painfully obvious that we hadn't. And of course the LSE played a big role in bringing money back into the story through Graeber, Dodd and Hart.
Anyway... a rambling way of saying that if one is flirting with modernity then that relationship between money, space and time is really crucial, IMO.
Ok! Thanks. I’ll add that to the long list of things to look into… 🙏
You're taking on a lot, Sir! I mean Simmel is genius but an utter nightmare too.
If you do fancy digging in and fancy a more straightforward route.... Prof Lisa Adkins The Time of Money is great. I think you've mentioned Martyn Konings before? Money as icon? The Time of Money is on the same imprint as Martyn's work. She grooves on Simmel but not enough to give you a headache... Bourdieu is her chief muse. She argues that money is changing our experience of time. Financialized Capitalism as a kind of hyper-modernity.
I read much of “The emotional logic of capitalism” by Konings about ten years ago, but I suspect I might get more out of it now…
Thoughtful and beautiful. Thank you for this.
Thanks Ashley 🙏
How does space as territory fit into what you are conceptualising here? Or does it? So often people claim and define space. Our whole human reality revolves around these definitions and claims of ownership. And yet, we’re just here, whatever that here is. This is the thinking around space that I’m exploring, perhaps different than what you describe, perhaps not so different at all.
Good question. Yes, space and ownership. Also I think Guattari speaks of “existential territories”. Lots more to say, but I can see why some believe we need to articulate the importance of space better and more often.
Speaking of Gebser, his work in The Ever-Present Origin should be considered in a discussion that involves space and modernity, as this comes up often in his book, along with looking at time and "dimensions" of consciousness."
In chapter 2 he states that "The achievement of perspective indicates man's discovery and consequent coming to awareness of space, whereas the unrealized perspective indicates that space is dormant in man and that he is not yet awakened to it... Not until the Gothic, the forerunner of the Renaissance was there a shift in emphasis. Before that space is not yet our depth-space, but rather a cavern (and vault), or simply an in-between space; in both instances it is undifferentiated space. "
He goes on to reference Petrarch's "discovery of landscape" when he got a view from the top of Mount Ventoux in 1336, and then hundreds of years later the development of perspectival vision and thought that showed itself in the work of Leonardo Da Vinci.
On page 117 of chapter 4, Gebser provides a table showing the unfolding dimensioning of the consciousness structures, where Archaic is zero-dimensional, pre-spatial and pretemporal; Magic is one-dimensional, spaceless and timeless; Mythical is two-dimensional, spaceless, but with natural temporicity; Mental is three-dimensional, spatial, and abstractly temporal; and Integral is four-dimensional, space-free, and time-free.
There's lots to be said in regards to how Gebser talks about "Measure and Mass" in relation to the Mental structure: "Only an aggregation or quantification - an indication of an exhausted qualitative potency - can guarantee a new mutation which seems to emerge from 'the whole' ..." (p. 130).
In chapter 4 of Part 2 (the 2nd chapter 4), there is a lot more said about the fourth dimension related to the Integral structure, discussing Einstein, non-Euclidean geometry, etc. On page 346, he writes: "And the concept of non-Euclidian geometry in turn is an anticipation, again imaginarily, of the later-realized sphere which is non-fixed, four-dimensional, and free of perspective (i.e. aperspectival) because it is a moving as well as transparent sphere... the four-dimensional sphere, or in geometric terms, space curved by time (!), is the only real basis for actualizing a four-dimensional system of coordinates. The simple sphere is merely three-dimensional; only the moving, transparent sphere is four-dimensional. And only the transparency guarantees the aperspectival perception."
Apologies for the long comment. "I would have made it shorter, but I ran out of time."
I find this one a bit impenetrable Jonathan, as in, I'm not really sure what's being discussed.
Do you know of the conceptual distinction 'egocentris Vs allocentric spatial frames of reference'? Maybe Adrian Moore, maybe others/ too in the analytic philosophy of mind space, latish 20th century. I wonder if it would give some purchase to a discussion of 'space', and more generally a discussion of "common sense concepts" (alluding to a sub stack post I believe you 'liked' but which I can't currently place)? I.e. to a discussion of something like 'how do people understand "Space" in the Modern era if we assume there's something problematic in the Modern understanding?'
Yes, it’s not fully cooked, but I had to take it out of oven nonetheless. I had not expected to get into the metaphysics of space when I ventured in, but my overall endeavour is to probe the intuition that the idea that modernity is ending is not quite right, and I’m collecting ideas like this one (the neglect of space, the forgetting of ether etc) along the way. If I only ever produced full cooked pieces substack would be very difficult. Sometimes you have to publish the sticky ones to clear space for whatever is coming next.
I totally appreciate that question (what are we on about, 'modernity is ending '?) This whole thing ('writing helps people connect with their humanity', for instance, to allude to something you remarked on here in substance) about what the well constructed paragraphs can be hoped to achieve is something I struggle with.
I seem to be doing a lot of (literal) digging (as part of an ongoing house, home, family community building project) these days, keeping me grounded!