Interpretations of Heidegger’s discussion of space in Being and Time have predominantly focused on two related themes: Heidegger’s attempt to ground spatiality in temporality and the problem of embodiment. Little direct attention, however, has been given to the role Heidegger’s discussion of spatiality plays in his analysis of Dasein’s Being-in-the-world. This paper pursues the thesis that Heidegger’s account of Being-in-the-world, which is meant to avoid a subject-object dichotomy by representing a unitary phenomenon, falls prey to a charge of subjectivism lacking (...) an adequate account of spatiality. I support this claim in three steps. In the first section, I show how Heidegger’s discussion of spatiality is aimed at deflecting a charge of subjectivism. The second section argues that Heidegger’s account of spatiality fails to go beyond the system of relations that defines worldhood and Being-in. In the final section, I will define what I consider to be a necessary condition for a non-subjectivist system of relations: an encounter between Dasein and entities in which the latter are not determined entirely according to the system of relations. I discuss the two instances where Heidegger discusses the idea of encounter, arguing that his account falls short of the criterion I propose. (shrink)

The intersection of philosophies of space and technology is a fecund area of inquiry that has received surprisingly little attention in the philosophical literature. While the major accounts of space and place have not considered complexities introduced by recent technological developments, scholarship on the human-technology relationship has virtually ignored the spatial dimensions of this interaction. Place and Digital Space takes a step in addressing this gap in literature by offering an original, phenomenological account of place and using this framework to (...) analyze digitally mediated spaces. I argue that places are continually evolving, internally heterogenous, and spatially distinct meaningful wholes with indeterminate boundaries. I then show how spaces mediated by digital technologies, particularly augmented reality (AR), are fundamentally different from ordinary places. The increasing use of AR, I argue, poses an unprecedented challenge to the way we interpret, engage with, and have collective experiences of everyday places. Finally, I identify ethical questions raised by the interpretation of spaces by artificial intelligence, by the unauthorized augmentation of places, and by the possibility of a few companies with big data dominating the virtual modifications of public places. (shrink)

Phenomenological approaches to space have consistently made a distinction between a plurality of inhabited spaces and the single homogenous extendedness of Euclidean space. Martin Heidegger and Maurice Merleau-Ponty postulate unique spatial wholes pertaining to human life that pose a counterpoint to objective space and provide the necessary context for understanding all our spatial relations. However, the spatial wholes that are posited to clarify these relations are themselves far from univocal. Specifically, differences exist regarding what precisely unites various entities into a (...) meaningful spatial whole and how any such whole relates to others. Showing how Heidegger’s idea of Ort and Merleau-Ponty’s notion of espace vécu rely on multiple senses of nearness, this paper argues that the privileged sense of nearness in each case fails to delimit the spatial context, thereby putting into question the very possibility of a unified and distinct spatial whole. (shrink)