Abstract

In this paper, I will first examine the spatial aspect of self as found in Watsuji Tetsuro’s Climate and Culture. My study will focus almost entirely on the first chapter of this work where Watsuji sets out his theory of climate. I will then turn to his recently translated Ethics and examine the spatiality of the self as ningen, concentrating mainly on Chapter Nine, "The Spatiality of a Human Being." I do not pretend to give a full account of Watsuji’s philosophy, but hope to raise questions in order to think of space and self in a different manner, recognizing space as an essential element in the constitution of a concept of self — one forgotten in Heidegger’s Being and Time and in many contemporary accounts of personal identity.