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Open Jacobson Dissertation.Pdf The Pennsylvania State University The Graduate School College of the Liberal Arts BEING AT HOME: A PHENOMENOLOGICAL ANALSYIS OF THE EXPERIENCE OF SPACE A Thesis in Philosophy by Kirsten E. Jacobson 2006 Kirsten E. Jacobson Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy December 2006 The thesis of Kirsten E. Jacobson was reviewed and approved* by the following: John Russon Associate Professor of Philosophy University of Guelph Thesis Adviser Co-Chair of Committee Special Member John Christman Associate Professor of Philosophy and Political Science Co-Chair of Committee Veronique Foti Professor of Philosophy Shannon Sullivan Associate Professor of Philosophy and Women's Studies Head of the Department of Philosophy Alan Sica Professor of Sociology Alphonso Lingis Professor Emeritus of Philosophy Special Signatory *Signatures are on file in the Graduate School. ABSTRACT Influenced significantly by the works of Merleau-Ponty and of Heidegger, I argue that space is not the predetermined and uniform geometrical grid that many mathematical, physical, and psychological theories have claimed and in many cases continue to claim it to be, but rather the network of engagement and alienation that provides one’s orientation in the inter-human world. In addition to challenging the adequacy of certain canonical as well as many ‘commonsense’ conceptions of the nature of space and the perception of space, I provide original analyses and extensions of the phenomenological studies of space offered by both Heidegger and Merleau-Ponty. Furthermore, I present an original contribution to the conception of human spatial perception by arguing that our spatial experience is phenomenologically related to our experience of “home.” Specifically, like the experience of home, being spatial involves two complementary and inseparable aspects: It involves both the ability to stay safely within what is our own and also the need to venture out into what is other. These are not isolated moments; they are essential features of the same experience—the experience of our articulation into a world, or, said more basically, the very experience of human spatiality. I support this claim in part through an innovative analysis of agoraphobia—a common, but frequently inadequately treated spatial ‘disorder’. My analysis of agoraphobia allows me not only to offer new insights into the nature of a problematic spatial experience, but also to illuminate ways in which the experience of being at home is incomplete without the accompanying experience of being able and willing to leave the home. Ultimately, I draw together my phenomenological studies of space, agoraphobia, and the home to argue that being-at- home is the fundamental experience of space. I maintain that at the core of this character of our spatiality is the existential structure of our being as always both self and other, always both here and there. TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction…………………………………………………………………………...…...1 Chapter 1. THE SPACE OF PHYSICS AND THE SPACE OF EXPERIENCE…………8 I. Newton and Space……………………………………………………………..…..10 1. An Introduction to Absolute Space and Relative Space in Newton……..……10 2. The Ground for Absolute Space…………………………………………..…..12 3. The Necessity of the Concept of Absolute Space in Newtonian Physics……..16 II. Descartes and Space……………………………………………………………....17 1. Differences Between Newton’s and Descartes’s Analyses of Space…..……...18 2. Commonalities Between Newton’s and Descartes’s Analyses of Space…..….20 3. Descartes’s Theory of the Visual Perception of Space…………………..……25 III. Current Accounts of Spatial Perception that Accord with Descartes’s Theory.....32 1. Connections to Descartes’s Theory of Spatial Perception in Cognitive Science………………………………………………………………………....33 2. Current Research Projects that Align with Descartes’s Theory of Spatial Perception…..………………………………………………………………….36 IV. Current and Historical Accounts of Space and Spatial Perception that Challenge These Conceptions of Space………………………………………………….….40 1. Challenging the Notion that Spatial Perception is Euclidean in Nature……....41 2. Challenging the Notion that Spatial Perception is Absolute and Perspectiveless………………………………………………………………....47 3. Challenging the Notion that Spatial Perception Predetermined and Universal…..…………………………….……………………………….….…49 4. Challenging the Notion that Space as Exists as an Independent Entity…….…54 V. Conclusion…………………..…………………....………………………………56 Chapter 2. HEIDEGGER AND THE PHENOMENOLOGICAL CONCEPTION OF SPACE…………………………………………….…………………………………58 I. Being and Being-In…………………………….…………………………………..61 1. Being and Being-In as Care and Relevance…………………………………...62 2. The Worldliness of Being and Being-In: Being-in-the-World………………..70 3. The Interpersonal Character of Being-in-the-World…………………………..73 II. The Spatiality of Being-in-the-World…………………………………………….76 1. The Deseverance and Directionality of Being-in-the-World………………….76 2. The Explicit Spatiality of Being-in-the-World………………………………..83 3. Measurement as a Mode of Lived Space……………………………………...87 4. Mood and the Shape of Space…………………………………………………94 III. Conclusion…………………………………………………………………….....98 iv Chapter 3. MERLEAU-PONTY AND THE BODILY BASIS OF LIVED SPACE…..101 I. The Perception of Space………………………………………………………….103 II. The Body of Space………………………………………………………………111 1. Body Schema and Orientation……………………………………………….113 2. Spatial Levels………………………………………………………………...121 3. Outside Support for the Body as Integral in the ‘Production’ of Space……..137 4. A Possible Challenge to the Body’s Role in Spatial Experience…………….140 5. Space as the Dilation of Body………………………………………………..143 6. Space and Embodiment as Interpersonal…………………………………….152 III. Conclusion……………………………………………………………………...165 Chapter 4. CURRENT CONCEPTIONS OF AGORAPHOBIA AND THEIR LIMITATIONS…………………………………………………………………..…168 I. Why Are We Looking At Agoraphobia Now? …………………………………..168 II. General Phenomenon of Agoraphobia…………………………………………..172 III. Current Approach to Agoraphobia……………………………………………...176 1. Current Theoretical Approach……………………………………………….176 2. Current Treatment Approaches………………………………………………183 3. Motivation for the Current Theoretical and Treatment Approaches to Agoraphobia…………………………………………………………………..188 4. Spatial Assumptions Made by the Current Model…………………………...198 IV. Problems with this Approach From Within the Field of Psychiatry…………...204 V. Phenomenological Criticisms of the Current Approach………………………...216 VI. Conclusion……………………………………………………………………...238 Chapter 5. A PHENOMENOLOGICAL STUDY OF AGORAPHOBIA AND BEING- AT-HOME………………………………………………………………………….240 I. The Constriction of the Agoraphobic’s World…………………………………...240 II. Existential Roots of the Agoraphobic’s Constricted Life-World………………..247 III. A Phenomenological Interpretation of Home…………………………………..260 IV. Conclusion……………………………………………………………………...303 Chapter 6. THE HOMELESSNESS OF AGORAPHOBIA …………………………...305 I. The Agoraphobic’s Experience of Home………………………………………...306 II. The Interpersonal Roots of the Agoraphobic’s Fractured Experience of Home...318 III. The Role of Home in the Prevalence of Female Agoraphobics………………...326 IV. Agoraphobia, Citizenship, and Society………………………………………...333 V. Conclusion………………………………………………………………………337 Conclusion……………………………………………………………………………...343 Bibliography……………………………………………………………………………360 v Introduction What birds plunge through is not the intimate space in which you see all forms intensified. (Out in the Open, you would be denied your self, would disappear into that vastness.) Space reaches from us and construes the world: to know a tree, in its true element, throw inner space around it, from that pure abundance in you. Surround it with restraint. It has no limits. Not till it is held in your renouncing is it truly there. --Rainer Maria Rilke It is perhaps commonsense to be confident that space exists outside of us, that it depends in no way upon human beings for its composition; instead, it stands complete without us—except insofar as we are members of its myriad spatial relationships. Equally, it seems sensible to think that space has a regular and stable shape to it, and that objects within space retain constant figures and constant distances from one another unless they are moved or altered in some way. Engineering and home building projects, mileage estimates and air travel, maps and GPS systems all rely to a great extent on space as similar to (if not, in fact identical to) a fixed and eternal coordinate system in which measurements are constant to be sure for any viewer, but also for all time. Contrary to this common notion of what space is and what its measure is, I argue that our spatial experience and the very possibility for the experience of space are rooted in the way we are engaged with and in our world. Influenced significantly by the works of Merleau- 1 Ponty and of Heidegger, I argue, more specifically, that space is not the predetermined and uniform geometrical grid that many mathematical, physical, and psychological theories have claimed and in many cases continue to claim it to be, but rather the network of engagement and alienation that provides one’s orientation in the inter-human world. I maintain that at the core of this character of our spatiality is the existential structure of our being as always both self and other, always both here and there. I pursue this study of spatiality by first examining canonical conceptions of space that take space to have a rigid and predetermined form. I demonstrate in my first chapter that though these
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