It is clear that [this void space], which is obviously nothing, cannot have an actual existence.
JOHANNES KEPLER, Epitome of Copernican Astronomy
1. Reality, the Circle of Reality, the Environment, and Spatial Concepts
In a previous article, New Realism for Architects, I introduced the new realist hypothesis, which recognizes that both material (mind-independent) and immaterial (mind-dependent) aspects of reality are necessary to form a comprehensive image of reality. In that article, I explored how the new realist hypothesis could impact design practices and professions, arguing that both physical elements like, e.g., bricks, stones, glass, and trees, and abstract entities like, e.g., numbers, fictions, beliefs, theories, and memories are fully legitimate denizens of reality and, therefore, of architecture as a specific kind of reality.[1] According to this vision, reality regains its original meaning when we focus on the essence of a thing—its ultimate meaning, or the what of a thing—rather than its existence or actuality: as Heidegger interprets Kant, ‘Reality answers the question of what a thing is, and not whether it exists.’[2] Unlike materialist and idealist hypotheses, which try to overcome the dualism between matter and mind by denying one or the other, the new realist hypothesis takes a middle ground, recognizing opposites as real and complementary conditions for understanding reality; these opposing parts are necessary to complete the circle of reality and define it as an irreducible whole, encompassing the concrete and abstract, physical and ideal, being and becoming, actuality and potentiality, matter and mind… These complementary aspects enable us to define reality as a unique system, according to Ludwig von Bertalanffy’s definition of ‘system’ in General Systems Theory.[3] If reality were composed of truly separate parts, knowledge would be impossible, since there would be no potential for relationships and interconnections, not even at the most fundamental levels. This would mean no atoms, no molecules, no cells, no organisms, no societies, no cities, no architectures, and no theories of place and space, just isolated, randomly acting elements or parts—monads, to use Leibnizian terminology—existing in a perpetual state of chaos, which is clearly not the case in our overtly ordered reality. To understand reality’s unitary, organic, and systemic nature, we must grasp the threshold and interplay between mind-independent and mind-dependent aspects, particularly the relationship between concreteness and abstraction. To gain a comprehensive understanding of environmental phenomena, it is crucial to recognize the complementarity of the concepts of place and space—fundamental linguistic and conceptual tools we use to describe, observe, analyze, care for, and envision the future of reality. Reality is the environment–the environment we inhabit.
2. Closing the Circle of Reality. The Issue: Physicalist Interpretations of Space and Reductive Interpretations of Place
We are navigating the territory between the concrete and the abstract when dealing with spatial notions, such as concepts of place and space, which involve both mind-independent and mind-dependent aspects of reality. To clearly understand spatial and placial phenomena in reality, like architectural, urban, or environmental phenomena, we must first differentiate between concreteness and abstraction, acknowledging the epistemological and ontological differences and continuities between place and space, which have complementary roles—one being concrete, the other abstract, to begin with. This question is particularly relevant in the Anthropocene era, where we have discovered that environmental issues, conditioned by human actions, are shaping the environmental conditions for the survival of all living beings. The concepts of place and space are crucial in addressing environmental issues, as they serve as our primary tools for understanding the complexities of environmental dynamics. To gain a clear understanding of these dynamics, we require a conceptual framework that recognizes the difference and complementarity between place and space; this is impossible if we assign the same domain of pertinence to both notions, as physicalist interpretations of space often do by conflating it with place.
To gain a clear understanding of environmental dynamics, we require a conceptual framework that recognizes the difference and complementarity between place and space; this is impossible if we assign the same domain of pertinence to both notions
By giving those notions a descriptive role in the same concrete domain (which is often the case when we speak in terms of ‘physical spaces’), we essentially eliminate their main difference (concrete versus abstract from an ontological perspective) and, as a result, we lose the opportunity to explore different aspects of reality from opposing yet complementary viewpoints (epistemological perspective).
For instance, when examining architectural or urban phenomena, we cannot close the circle of reality (concrete/abstract dynamics) if we attribute place and space explanatory powers within the same physical domain, or if we neglect the crucial ontological and epistemological differences between projects, which exist in the realm of possibility and potentiality—a domain of space, fundamentally—and their concrete realization in the realm of factuality and actual existence—i.e., a realm of place, involving all its intertwined dynamics, including physicochemical, biological, ecological, sociocultural, and symbolic factors. Therefore, all of those dynamics need to be considered by the architect if we want buildings and dwelling to be aligned with the current reality and understanding of nature. Expressions like physical spaces, perceived spaces, lived spaces, experienced spaces, and existential spaces are all physicalist interpretations that mistakenly equate space with place; in reality, places can be physical, perceived, lived, experienced, or existential, whereas spaces are ideal and abstract entities, lacking a physical, sensible, or material nature. There is an unamendable sense of abstraction inherent in space that ultimately makes it impossible to change its nature into something concrete, physical, or material, despite the efforts of physicists, philosophers, social scientists, and architects, especially in the previous century. In my view, contemporary physics is the only field that has clearly recognized and rejected the fallacy underlying physicalist interpretations of space, instead developing a different model of spatiality. This resolute rejection is an example that those involved in spatial practices, such as architects, should follow—a point I’m making at RSaP—Rethinking Space and Place. I’ve noticed a striking similarity between the work of theorethical physicists and astronomers, and that of architects, suggesting that architects could benefit from studying the former more often, rather than limiting their explorations to the works of philosophers, social scientists, including psychologists, and neuroscientists. I suspect that the superposition of domains and roles between space and place, which is rooted in clear historical reasons, has weakened the explanatory power of both concepts in capturing the complex, interwoven dynamics of reality, which are inherently place-based. By emphasizing space, the focus on place as a key concept for understanding environmental phenomena has been diminished, leading to reductive interpretations of place. Ultimately, this situation led to our disconnection from nature, due to a lack of understanding of the interconnectedness between natural and cultural dynamics. This has widened the gap between human projects (one for all: the project of modernity), rooted in the abstract domains of space and reality, which is rooted in the concrete place of actualized environmental processes, i.e., physicochemical, biological, ecological, sociocultural and symbolic, or intellectual, dynamics.[4] Since the mid-20th century, there has been a failure to recognize the unitary complexity of environmental reality, despite growing factual evidence. In the end, the modern concepts of place and space proved inadequate for explaining and addressing the environmental and territorial dynamics of a world in transition.[5] We need to rethink our understanding of spatiality by proposing a unified, holistic vision of reality that integrates both place-based (concrete, material, mind-independent) and space-based (abstract, spiritual, mind-dependent) perspectives. This vision should be guided by a clear and universal understanding of spatiality, informed by both ontological and epistemological considerations, rather than being fragmented into discipline-specific notions of space and place that lack cohesion.
In my view, place has the power to gather, encompass, hold, sustain, and situate all kinds of events and processes of reality, including abstract processes like language and symbolism, which ultimately give rise to the concept of space and its abstract explanatory possibilities, assuming space is understood as an utterly abstract notion (at least, this is the belief I have matured over the years of specific spatial research, in different areas). As I see it, reality is the placial appropriation of a consecutive chain of processes: physicochemical → biological → sociocultural → symbolic (relative to human thought). Ultimately, from the standpoint of thought, we can re-appropriate things, namely, physicochemical processes actualized into matter, thereby closing the circle of reality. That is: things → life → society → thought ↩ in an ascending order of abstraction, are the states of place through which reality unfolds, at first, as a mind-independent realm, and eventually as a mind-dependent domain that reappropriates things.
2.1. The Origins and Consequences of the Issue
Here, the interpretative issue concerning the phenomenon of spatiality and spatial practices has a twofold nature with significant epistemological consequences: firstly, it concerns the concept of space, which, despite its original abstract meaning has been increasingly interpreted in materialist or physicalist terms, transforming it into a physical, self-subsistent entity, formalized as ‘absolute space’.[6] As I observed in previous articles, this notion, derived from physics, initially influenced philosophical speculations and eventually conditioned the spatial narratives of other fields (psychology, social sciences, architecture, economy, art, etc.), permeating ordinary thinking and language, and defining our modern era as ‘the epoch of space’, where places are often described as spaces.[7] Except for occasional scholarly debates, no meaningful distinctions can be found between the two designations: they are often used interchangeably, as noted by philosophers Leclerc and Malpas, and as I suggested in the photographic report Spatiophilia, which explores the ordinary use of the two concepts in the streets of Milano.[8]
Secondly, the physicalist interpretation of space, apart from creating a superposition of meanings increasing the risk of undifferentiation and the difficulty to focus on detailed analysis of spatial/placial phenomena that require specific definitions rather than undifferentiated notions, almost inverted the explanatory power of the two concepts, and the attention scholars gave them. In modern times, attention has shifted towards elucidating the concept of space, leading to the marginalization of place with significant consequences: the reduction of place to a mere physical location or geographical factor, with little exploration of its real nature or challenge to the dominant space-based narratives. As a result, unlike space, few studies have focused specifically on place, and, to my knowledge, no transdisciplinary studies have attempted to provide a universal sense of place and space, challenging their traditional meanings forged by classical physics.[9]
3. Reverting the Situation: Exploring the Past to Normalize the Present and Leap into the Future of Spatial Debates
The circumstances mentioned earlier have influenced our current understanding of place and space, favoring physicalist and materialist explanations and limiting the scope and usefulness of these concepts. In reality, there is more to it than the physical; further, no unified vision of spatiality has been proposed to integrate the diverse disciplinary perspectives and spatial practices into a comprehensive view (encompassing aspects such as physical, metaphysical, philosophical, ecological, humanistic, architectural, economic, political, and psychological—a question I am exploring at RSaP, fundamentally).
As things stand, how should we conceive of space and place so that a clearer epistemological line of demarcation between the two concepts can be traced, their fundamentally different ontological nature (concrete and abstract) recognized and made clear again, and their complementary relationship reestablished avoiding fragmented or narrow (sectorial) explanations of reality that lack a unified perspective? By assigning their original realm of pertinence and conserving their original meanings, considered as the grounding determinants for present and future speculations to extend those original meanings through inclusion, while preserving clear boundaries without confusing their different domains of applicability How so? By returning to the moment in which the old concept of place was under reconsideration and the modern concept of space under formation—i.e., during the 15th to 17th centuries, when philosophers, physicists, astronomers, theologians and mathematicians (now different figures but, in the past, often represented by the very same person) were reimagining the world. That period, similar to our own transitory epoch, was marked by a redefinition of nature based on new physical laws and a new cosmological vision.[10]
Reality between place and space—that is: place( )space—is the formula to understand reality in its entirety; contemporarily, a concrete and placial fact, on the one hand, and an abstract and spatial fact, on the other hand. That completeness—the closed circle—can only be achieved if we respect the natural sense of these concepts, that is, if the original linguistic and historical meaning (also philosophical and physical in the case of place), which defined their realm of belonging, is preserved. Very briefly, as we have already seen in many articles at RSaP, place has its original meaning and antecedent form in the physically active and concrete concept devised by Aristotle (topos), as the holder, supportive matrix, or bounded container of physical reality (Aristotle’s Concept of Place). As a general principle, in later speculations, the concrete nature of place was preserved before modern theories undermined its physical significance and explanatory power. Conversely, space, which had its original meaning and antecedent forms in the abstract notions of distance, extension, and/or measure—i.e., the Greek spadion/stadion and the Latin spatium (see Back to the Origins of Space and Place)—underwent a gradual but persistent process of reification, ultimately transforming from an abstract to a concrete concept and merging its meaning with that of place. The continuum of reality, initially understood as a topological question (a matter of place: here, the authority is Aristotle), eventually evolved into a spatial question (a matter of space, with Newton as the authority).
Then, to close the circle of reality between concreteness and abstraction in terms of spatiality, we must first restore space to its original abstract domain, preserving its conceptual power to describe, explain, and potentially modify reality, while also acknowledging the ontological and physical priority of place. That’s why, as a starting point to establish a more solid foundation for spatial debates, I suggest we examine how astronomers like Copernicus and Kepler understood place and space between the 16th and 17th centuries, before the introduction of the modern classical physics model, rooted in Galileo and Newton, erased fundamental ontological and epistemological differences between the original concepts of place and space, altering our sense of spatiality and environmental perception.
Here, to demonstrate how to restore the model of spatiality to its original sense and state, I have chosen an exemplary case inspired by a drawing in Kepler’s 1606 text, De Stella Nova (see Image 01, below), which provides a simple and intuitive explanation of the original sense of place and space prevalent during that period.
Here, the exemplary case I have chosen to demonstrate how to revert the spatial situation to its original state takes a clue from a drawing by Kepler’s text De Stella Nova, 1606 (see Image 01, below): this drawing provides a simple and intuitive account of the original sense of place and space that was valid during that period. Again, I want to point out that this is merely the starting point for establishing a foundation upon which building the new edifice of spatiality for present and future debates (one that diverges from classical physics, which has determined our ordinary understanding of spatiality and, consequently, our fragmented perception of the environment); this is the alternative approach I’m presenting at RSaP, grounded in contemporary scientific and philosophical speculation (for the occasion, I restrict the phenomenon of spatiality to concepts of place, space, and their relationship, since those concepts, more than other spatial concepts, are basic concepts). The new edifice is necessary—rethinking space and place is necessary and, as a matter of fact, is already happening regardless of personal theories and hypotheses—because the concept of nature is changing (with respect to the Laws of nature envisioned by classical physics and its alleged cosmology), and, with it, our understanding of reality and spatial concepts are shifting (a topic I have explored in the following articles: Place, Space, and the Philosophy of Nature, Place, Space, Matter and a New Conception of Nature, and Concepts of Place, Space, Matter and the Nature of Physical Existence). I argue that any spatial conceptualizations, explanations, or theories that ignore the fundamental validity of the original spatial model, where place is the concrete foundation that enables space to be imagined as an abstract concept, not a physical instance of place, are incomplete and unsuitable for reconciling reality’s concrete and abstract aspects.
Image 01, Reproduction from Kepler’s De Stella Nova, 1606: illustration of successive great conjunctions of Jupiter and Saturn.
4. Place and Space Between Matter and Mind
Kepler’s exemplary drawing provides useful insights into the interpretation of space and place, untainted by fallacious or illogical presuppositions that obscured their original meanings in the modern epoch and more recent times. Before explaining the immediate sense of that drawing through the words of the British physicist Julian Barbour, we should note that the original application of abstract mathematical techniques to precisely determine concrete astronomical phenomena, such as the position and motion of celestial bodies, contributed to the gradual shift in interest from place (the concrete realm of stars and planets) to space (the realm of their mathematical and geometrical relations). In the 16th century, astronomers like Copernicus, Brahe, and Kepler used mathematical techniques to study the sky, much like 15th-century architects, artists, and mathematicians such as Brunelleschi, Alberti, Masaccio, and Pacioli, who employed mathematical, geometrical, and pictorial techniques to accurately represent and reproduce indoor and outdoor environments, focusing on proportions, distances, and the appearance of bodies, which led to the discovery of perspective. It’s essential to remember that between the 15th and 17th centuries, the human mind still relied on the physical concept of place as a solid foundation for speculating about reality as a bounded realm, a legacy dating back to Aristotle’s concrete definition of place (topos); however, new ways to transcend this concept and project into the infinite were imagined, and it was the abstract idea of space the conceptual device that enabled the human mind to make this leap.
Mobile quoddam super planum horizontale proiectum mente concipio, omni secluso impedimento…
GALILEO GALILEI, Discorsi
Mind was the key element to imagining and discovering new laws of nature, as also evidenced by the famous statement by Galileo in his Discorsi (‘mente concipio’… I think in my mind of something movable that is entirely left to itself) when things are posited in advance by the mind (imagined) rather than relying solely on direct observation or experience. A device, an invention, a deliberate creation of the human mind, or an empty figment of reason, according to Kant (his remark was about the concept of physical space, i.e., absolute space): that’s what space is—not something out there that we can physically cross through or step into as we are used to say (e.g., see the articles The Place of the Invisible and the Intangible, and The Treachery of Space).[11] Therefore, speaking about space in physicalist terms, as if it were the concrete extent that enables things to exist and be located, or even more mistakenly, as if it were the ultimate frame of reference for things, bodies, or places—the arena of things—ignores at least two millennia of human history and debates on the placial and/or spatial nature of reality. What is the point of that removal—the concealment of the original meanings and realms of pertinence of place and space—if it led us to a mistaken relationship with the environment, which we primarily comprehend and, then, manipulate through the concepts of place and space?
What is the point of concealing the original meanings and realms of pertinence of place and space, if it led us to a mistaken understanding of the environment, which we primarily comprehend and, then, manipulate through the concepts of place and space?
That’s why I propose revisiting a specific historical period when the genuine concepts of place and space were being critically reexamined and redefined, before they became obscured by multiple, highly debatable spatial interpretations that altered their original meanings and confused their ontological and epistemological relationship. By doing so, we can capture the precise ontological and epistemological snapshot of their residual, ultimate, and unamendable senses, which should provide the foundation for current and future speculations on rebuilding the concept of spatiality in line with our new understanding of nature.
5. The Place of Space
Readers interested in a detailed account of how philosophers, physicists, and astronomers developed the original hypothesis of spatiality, as described here, are referred to the article Space and Place: A Scientific History – Part One, which draws on Julian Barbour’s historical study on The Discovery of Dynamics, particularly Paragraphs 4. The Middle Ages: first stirrings of the scientific revolution, 5. Copernicus: the flimsy arch (between the Heavens and Earth), 6. Kepler: the dominion of the sun. On this occasion, I will outline the fundamental ontological and epistemological value of that model, which is crucial for maintaining ontological and epistemological consistency in our current and future place-based and space-based speculations on the environmental sense of reality.[12]
Slideshow 01 (Images 02-05): Co-presence of the concepts of place as a concrete reference (represented by the golden circular sector, which includes the fixed stars and zodiac) and space as an abstract reference (the abstract domain of geometric projections of past and future planetary positions, represented by the lines within the sector, which can be imagined as self-subsistent, that is space, precisely) in the mind and the works of astronomers in the XVI century.
The key takeaway from Julian Barbour’s account is the crucial observation that, since the Middle Ages, astronomers have ‘imposed the trigonometric viewpoint’ in understanding the Cosmos, ‘at the expense of philosophers’.[13] This realization forms the basis of our spatial inquiry: after nearly two millennia of relying on Aristotle and Ptolemy’s physical and astronomical models, which were rooted in Aristotelian physicalism and a bounded notion of place, we are now redefining our understanding of the Cosmos through abstract mathematical speculations rather than mere observation and logic. Here, Copernicus (1473-1543) played a pivotal role in this shift by combining Aristotle’s concrete physical/cosmological model with abstract mathematical speculations, using trigonometry to calculate planetary positions, distances, and reciprocal dispositions, ultimately leading to imagine the concept of infinite space. As Barbour noted, Copernicus was the first to measure the Cosmos with mathematical evidence, dramatically magnifying its scale and suggesting an infinite extent between Saturn, the outer known planet at the time, and the fixed stars—an idea that eventually erased the Aristotelian finite boundary of the Cosmos and its comforting figuration (see Image 18 in Space and Place: A Scientific History – Part One). In essence, two coexisting ideas were present in the minds of astronomers during that period: [A] the physical, concrete presence of place, rooted in the Aristotelian idea of the Cosmos as a finite realm, and [B] the abstract concept (or proto-concept) of space, which is used to impose or superimpose a framework on place through trigonometric techniques, thereby creating an abstract domain where the Cosmos is represented and understood, first in the minds of astronomers and eventually, through calculations, offered to everyone else. In this model of spatiality, the two moments—the concrete realm of place [A], and the abstract domain of space [B]—were correlated, and one brought forth the other: the circle of reality was closed—appropriately closed, from a placial and/or spatial perspective.
With specific regard to this conception of spatiality, let’s see the remarkable explanation offered by Barbour: ‘Copernicus combines Aristotle’s ultimate ouranos [i.e., ‘the place’ of the fixed stars, the outer sphere of the Cosmos] with… space […]. The space within the container is no longer a nest of topological envelopes but a tautly spanned region of trigonometric relations, an invisible membrane spanned by the rim of the drum provided by the fixed stars.’ [14]
Copernicus combines Aristotle’s ultimate ouranos [i.e., ‘the place’ of the fixed stars, the outer sphere of the Cosmos] with… space […]. The space within the container is no longer a nest of topological envelopes but a tautly spanned region of trigonometric relations, an invisible membrane spanned by the rim of the drum provided by the fixed stars
JULIAN BARBOUR, The Discovery of Dynamics
This concept of space is very well illustrated by the featured image of this article, which is the subject of our discussion (see also Image 01, above). The drawing is due to Kepler, actually, but ‘is not relevant’, Barbour says, ‘since on this particular point his views [the views of Kepler] were almost identical to Copernicus’s. The stars (‘studs’) are represented by the signs of the zodiac around the rim of the drum. The successive points on the rim represent successive conjunctions of Jupiter and Saturn. The lines within the rim highlight the way in which metrical geometry is used within an ultimate frame of reference provided by the stars.’[15]That frame of reference, which is the sphere of actual stars, is where everything is located. The conjunctions, or metrical relations, envisioned by astronomers within it—a matter of extension, measure, and relativity of position between celestial bodies—constitute the space. This space, is a deliberate creation of the human mind; it is not something existing in a physical place, as ordinary physicalist interpretations of space would have us believe. This model is both ontologically and epistemologically sound, making it highly suitable for architects and applicable to any hypothesis of spatiality, regardless of the domain, as it addresses the fundamental, unchanging essence of space as an extension or relational continuum (which are abstract aspects) and of place as the concrete stage that enables the dynamics of reality (physicochemical, biological, ecological, sociocultural, symbolic). This space—space—is not physical; it is not a space where physical bodies move, are generated, located, perceived, or where we can step into or cross through, unlike what we’ve learned from traditional modern spatial narratives by physicists, philosophers, psychologists, architects, social scientists, artists, or odinary people. This space, the concept that Copernicus and Kepler explored with unbiased minds, unencumbered by previous speculations, given that the concept was still in its initial formative stage, was essentially an ‘absolute nothing’ (that is, nothing physical) that couldn’t have an actual existence, as the opening quote says.[16] This idea was in complete agreement with Aristotle’s views on place and the void, expressed a couple of millennia earlier, and also aligned with the perspectives of numerous notable philosophers, physicists, and scientists in subsequent eras, including Kant and Einstein, just to name two of them among many others I mentioned in the article What is Architecture?
6. Texts, Textures, Vectors, Arrays, Numbers… Spaces and Representations of Space
It is now clear that according to our hypothesis, which aims to reclaim the original sense of space, we must reject the idea that space is a physical or quasi-physical entity and instead argue that its meaning and structure derive from the extension of actual places, things, or bodies, and the relations between them. Starting from the initial abstraction of physical locations, objects, or bodies, subsequent abstractions have led to the creation of increasingly abstract and structured spaces across various domains of human knowledge. Ultimately, space becomes a self-subsistent entity. However, it’s essential to note that such self-subsistent entity is an abstract or ideal entity, which can serve as the territory or receptacle for other abstract entities. Over time, we have developed various ways to express spatial relations, and the spaces they create, in many different terms: astronomical, physical (regarding physics), philosophical, geometrical, mathematical, psychological, social, architectural, literary, artistic… spaces. These expressions or representations of space vary from concrete forms, where the original place or objects are still recognizable, to abstract forms, where no connection to actual places or objects remains, and space itself becomes a domain for other abstract entities or their relations. In all cases, such abstract relations or representational frameworks, which derive their ultimate meaning from extension (i.e., the extensive continuum), define the true and original nature of space—its unamendable sense.
Slideshow 02 (Images 06-09): Different kinds of spatial relations define the specific nature of space: so, for instance, we can have astronomical space (which is fundamentally the place of astronomical events, as seen in the Slideshow 01, above), choreographic space (where dancers’ movements, for instance, can be prefigured by Laban graphs, as in Image 06) architectural space (as in Image 07: Archi-textures by Alessandro Calvi Rollino Architetto, study of functional, perceptual and movement dynamics for the Santiago Ydáñez Museum in Spain), perceptual space (as in Image 08: example of ambient optic array, reconstruction from James J. Gibson’s The Perception of the Visual World), and mathematical or geometrical space (as shown in Image 09, a snapshot of the dynamics of solid figures), etc. Such relations, which have extension (i.e., the extensive continuum) as their domain of application, are characterized by being abstract entities: such is the true and original nature of space.
Summary
We have seen that reality presents both mind-independent and mind-dependent aspects. To fully understand reality, we should consider both concrete and abstract phenomena as interconnected aspects of a whole. Unless we can effectively correlate these aspects, our understanding of reality will be incomplete, much like physicalist interpretations of space that often conflate place with respect to environmental questions or practices. Betraying its original meaning and domain of existence, space became the favourite concept of modernity to explain environmental dynamics in a physical sense, causing a superposition of meanings between place and space, and, ultimately, the semantic impoverishment of the notion of place itself, which negatively impacted our comprehension of environmental reality as a complex system of place-based dynamics, ranging from physical, or natural, to cultural, and symbolic. I have argued that our troubled relationship with nature in the Anthropocene era also stems from a limited understanding of the conceptual tools we use to observe, analyze, care for, manage, and modify the complex environmental reality around us, particularly our concepts of place and space. To prevent further negative consequences of an unbalanced human approach to environmental reality, I have proposed to restore the original meanings and domains of the concepts of place and space, thereby reconstructing a faultless image of spatiality that allows us to comply with environmental dynamics on more equitable and solid basis. To rethink spatiality (an ongoing historical and sociocultural process), I have suggested revisiting the period between the 15th and 17th centuries when astronomers, physicists, mathematicians, and philosophers reimagined the world, shifting from a place-based conception of the Cosmos as a finite entity to a space-based conception of the Universe as infinite. Specifically, I have proposed using an ontological and epistemological snapshot, represented by an image from Kepler’s De Stella Nova (1606), as a reference point for reformulating the foundation of spatiality on which building present and future spatial speculations. That is a clear-cut, immediate and intuitive way to acknowledge reality as the concrete place where abstract space-based relations can be imagined. Since these relations are inherently abstract and conditioned by the original, unamendable sense of space as extension (i.e., the extensive continuum), they can take various forms, such as astronomical, psychological, architectural, geometrical, philosophical, literary, social, urban, artistic, etc., ultimately defining the true essence of space as an ideal or abstract entity.
Notes
[1] The expression in italic is from philosopher Markus Gabriel: Cf. Markus Gabriel’s New Realism edited by Jan Voosholz. Springer, 2024 e-book edition.
[2] We have seen that through Heidegger’s explanation of Kantian philosophy: see section B.II. The Question About the Thing in Kant’s Main Work in the article What Is a Thing?
[3] ‘a system can be defined as a complex of interacting elements [where] the whole is more than the sum of parts’, in Ludwig von Bertalanffy, General System Theory: Essays on its Foundation and Development (New York: George Braziller, 1968), 55.
[4] I contend that the diminished explicative power of space is due to the fact that despite its abstract origin, it has been charged with concrete physical qualities that eventually prevented the accurate investigation of its abstract domain of provenance and all of its quarters. Parallelly, the focus on space devested the attention of scholars from place and its accurate recognition as a key theoretical concept.
For instance, concerning architecture or urbanism, if space were immediately understood as an utterly abstract entity, as it should be, rather than as a concrete entity or a metaphorical entity, as it is, a far better systemic and systematic approach towards the complex role of memories, recollections, beliefs, spirituality, dreams, values, symbolism, etc.—which are all quarters of abstraction—in the determination of architectures and cities could have been undertaken. In brief, in the modern epoch, the interest of philosophers, scientists, social scientists, architects, etc. in environmental or territorial questions has been mainly directed to the elucidation of the concept of space, extending its domain of application to the concrete realm of place, rather than focusing on the different dimensions of place and space. This fact reconnects to the known definition given by Michel Foucault in the 1960s, who described our epoch as ‘the epoch of space’ – in Michel Foucault, ‘Of Other Spaces’, in Diacritics, Spring 1986, 22.
[5] Different articles at RSaP have argued the phenomenon of industrialization and, more recently, globalization were also played on or facilitated by the missed correspondences between poorly understood spatial notions and real environmental/territorial dynamics. Environmental questions, at the epoch of the Anthropocene, are also a consequence of such poorly understood spatial notions, unable to take account of environmental dynamics which are unitary dynamics—contrarily to our understanding of spatial concepts which are ‘dispersed’, fragmentary notions unable to comply with the unitary dynamics of a total environment. My reinstatement of the analysis of spatiality through the notion of place as a system of processes, and of space as an utterly abstract notion emergent from place takes account of those relevant questions.
[6] A measure of distance, an extension (i.e. the extensive continuum)—such as space—cannot have a concrete or physical self-subsistent existence: it is a logical fallacy to believe the contrary. We should understand space as an entity associated with something else out of which it draws its meaning; that ‘something else’ is place or the things in place. Place and/or the things in place are the self-subsisting entities, not ‘physical space’, which, as Kant said, is a non-entity.
[7] Starting from the traditional physicalist understanding of space promoted after classical physics, we arrived at physical or quasi-physical definitions of space as existential and phenomenological entities; those interpretations contributed to erasing the subtle ontological and epistemological divide between place and space. In antiquity, starting from Archytas and Aristotle, those existential and phenomenological characters, or qualities, were unambiguously attributed to place—i.e., topos.
[8] Concerning Leclerc, see the Introductory Part of Concepts of Place, Space, Matter and the Nature of Physical Existence; concerning Malpas, in Place and Experience: A Philosophical Topography he observed: ‘many of the discussions of place in the existing literature suggest that the notion is not at all clearly defined. Concepts of place are often not distinguished at all from notions of simple physical location, while sometimes discussions that seem implicitly to call upon notions of place refer explicitly only to a narrower concept of space’ – Jeff Malpas, Place and Experience: A philosophical Topography (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), 19.
[9] Among other literature, the alternation between concepts of place and space to explain physical phenomena has been narrated by Edward Casey in The Fate of Place, which is the subject of the article Place and Space: A Philosophical History, and by Ivor Leclerc in The Nature of Physical Existence, which is the subject of the articles Place, Space, Matter and a New Conception of Nature, and Concepts of Place, Space, Matter and the Nature of Physical Existence. If we exclude the indirect endorsement of the new physics for the concept of place—via the abandonment of physicalist interpretations of space and the introduction of the field concept which, I have argued, can be seen as a specific (i.e., a physical) instance of place—among interpretative efforts aimed at giving place a renovated power, more grounding and with a more encompassing meaning with respect to traditional narratives, I want to point out the different contributes of philosophers such as Martin Heidegger and Kitaro Nishida, or, more recently, the placial accounts of Edward Casey and Jeff Malpas (and to a certain extent Ivor Leclerc whose hermeneutic work on the concept of nature contributed to clarify the historical and reciprocal roles of the concepts of place and space). Also, since the 1960s, a list of social scientists and architects contributed to the humanistic extension of the concept of place—in existential, phenomenological, and sociocultural sense—yet without focusing on the discernment between concrete and abstract aspects of spatial notions, which is a basic issue to offer an appropriate, universal understanding of concepts of place and space that goes against fragmentary visions.
[10] Alexandre Koyré characterized that precise historical moment as ‘the destruction of the Cosmos [i.e., the place of the Cosmos] and the geometrization of space’. In Alexandre Koyré, From the Closed World to the Infinite Universe (Baltimore: The John Hopkins Press, 1957), viii.
Symptomatic of the confusion between concepts of place and space, an argument I have always pointed out at RSaP, in certain parts of Koyré’s book, there are problematic (anachronistic?) attributions of certain spatial concepts to ancient authors. As I said on different occasions, that confusion is mainly due to traditional spatial interpretations, narratives, and translations conditioned by classical physics (i.e., Newtonian concepts of space and place). I am referring to some problematic attributions of a notion of space to the speculations of ancient Greek thinkers, specifically the Atomists (e.g., pages 5, 145, 213) and Aristotle (e.g., viii, 46, 141). Leaving aside for one moment philological considerations, if we can accept as possible or plausible a conceptual affinity between the void and space as the neutral stage of atomic events, and, therefore, acceptable the linguistic use of space for the void, no conceptual affinity may exist between space and Aristotle’s understanding of the continuum (i.e., place, topos), so it is physically (in relation to physics) inaccurate other than linguistically unacceptable the use of the term ‘space’ in connection with Aristotle, in whatever situation (in Aristotle’s physics, place has some powers that determine the direction of motion of bodies, contrarily to the void or the void-as-space which has no powers at all—that’s also the reason why it has been said that Aristotle’s notion of the continuum, i.e., place/topos, has some affinities with the field concept of the new physics).
[11] Cf. Kant’s Inaugural Dissertation and Early Writings on Space, trans. John Handyside. Chicago: Open Court Publishing Co., 1929, 62. The specific reference of Kant is to the physical concept of physics, i.e., absolute space.
[12] It is also highly advisable for readers to be already acquainted with the historical account of place and space narrated by Casey in The Fate of Place—see the article Place and Space: A Philosophical History—and with the accounts on the interconnection between spatiality, materiality and their impact on the human understanding of nature narrated by Leclerc in The Nature of Physical Existence and The Philosophy of Nature—see Concepts of Place, Space, Matter and the Nature of Physical Existence, Place, Space, Matter and a New Conception of Nature Place, and Place, Space, and the Philosophy of Nature.
[13] Julian B. Barbour, The Discovery of Dynamics: A Study from a Machian Point of View of the Discovery and the Structure of Dynamical Theories. (New York: Oxford University Press Inc., 2001), 224.
[14] Ibid., 247-248
[15] Ibid., 247-248
[16] ‘If you are speaking of void space, that is, of what is nothing, what neither is, nor is created, and cannot oppose a resistance to anything being there, you are dealing with quite another question. It is clear that [this void space], which is obviously nothing, cannot have an actual existence’, as reported in Julian B. Barbour, The Discovery of Dynamics: A Study from a Machian Point of View of the Discovery and the Structure of Dynamical Theories (New York: Oxford University Press Inc., 2001), 341.
Works Cited
Barbour, Julian B. The Discovery of Dynamics: A Study from a Machian Point of View of the Discovery and the Structure of Dynamical Theories. New York: Oxford University Press Inc., 2001.
Bertalanffy, Ludwig von. General System Theory: Essays on its Foundation and Development. New York: George Braziller, 1968.
Casey, Edward S. The Fate of Place: A Philosophical History. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997.
Foucault, Michel. ‘Of Other Spaces’, in Diacritics, Spring, 1986.
Kant, Immanuel. Kant’s inaugural Dissertation and Early Writings on Space, trans. Handyside John. Chicago: The Open Couts Publishing Company, 1929.
Koyré, Alexandre. From the Closed World to the Infinite Universe. Baltimore: The John Hopkins Press, 1957.
Leclerc, Ivor. The Nature of Physical Existence. London: George Allen & Unwin Ltd., 1972.
—. The Philosophy of Nature. Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 1986.
Malpas, Jeff. Place and Experience: A Philosophical Topography. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004.
Image Credits
Featured Image and Image 01, source: Kepler’s Stella Nova, via archive.org
Image 03, reconstruction from Kepler’s Stella Nova
Image 06, source (background image), via orienteoccidente.it
Image 08: reconstruction from James J. Gibson’s The Perception of the Visual World
All other Images by Alessandro Calvi Rollino Architetto, CC, BY-NC-SA
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