Description
Throughout his work, ranging from Being and Time through later essays like “Building Dwelling Thinking” or “Art and Space,” Martin Heidegger conceived of spatiality as a dynamic, emergent aspect of the world. This paper seeks to present some of the main trends and evolutions in Heidegger’s philosophy of space. The first section presents a detailed introduction to Heidegger’s approach to phenomenology taken in Being and Time, which is then used as a foundation on which his early philosophy of spatiality can be explained. The second section is an examination of how Heidegger subsequently developed his understanding of space by considering its relation to works of art. Following this is a discussion of the implications of Heidegger’s later thought on spatiality for cultural values. This section contrasts his analysis of “enrootedness” with Emmanuel Levinas’s argument against particular moral and cultural attachments to land and place. The paper concludes with a brief commentary on an area of overlap between Heidegger’s understanding of mathematics and that of Albert Einstein. This section attempts to indicate the importance of this overlap for Heidegger’s own conception of spatiality and his criticisms of modern science.
