A Study Of The Concept Of Space In The Perspective Of Heidegger’s Phenomenology

In the present era,the natural sciences,especially physics,dominate the interpretation of space and largely determine the way we think about the question“what is space”.But physics can neither reveal the true nature of all the experiences of space that we have acquired,nor can it reveal the roots of them.According to Husserl,the main characteristic of modern science is its mathematization,which in fact already presupposes that the nature of the world is constructed by mathematics and that the world is unfolded in mathematics alone.Heidegger,on the other hand,points out that mathematical things refer to our pre-grasp and acquisition of the content of something,and that “mathematics” is the consequence of the mathematical things being a basis.Thus,the physical interpretation of space represents only a mathematical normativity that does not allow us to face this thing itself,but also,to a large extent,these interpretations are based on the long-standing philosophical study of space.Philosophy has been asking what spatiality is and where it comes from,i.e.,how to consistently explain the content of spatiality as we experience it and to specify its substance.In the ancient Greek era,Aristotle was the first philosopher to discuss space systematically and comprehensively.He considers space as the “place” of things and specifies it as the “static interface of the container”.The birth of an independent and self-contained concept of “space” was attributed to the joint efforts of philosophers from the post-Greek era until the Middle Ages,which resulted from the continuous philosophical analysis and further elaboration of the concepts of void,dimension and extension.Beginning with Descartes,the study of space began to shift to an epistemological horizon,as philosophers began to rethink how spatiality is known to us and what it actually entails in this context.Descartes saw space as equivalent to the extension of objects because they point to the same thing for our understanding,after which the empiricists and rationalists also relied on this tendency to deconstruct spatiality as solidity,position relations,or other cognitive elements.Kant reversed this understanding,placing space as the pure form of perceptual intuition at the source where cognition could begin,which affirms both the inherence and independence of space and its subjective necessity.But in contrast to phenomenology,what traditional philosophy still fails to see in the study of space is the crucial difference between things as “that which appears” and their “appearing”,and still fails to reveal how we ourselves play a role in them.Husserl’s phenomenology truly makes the philosophical investigation of space a thorough study that does not presuppose any other knowledge,and in Husserl’s view,this phenomenological study of space should be a cognitive critique based on phenomenological epochē and reduction.Based on the fundamental structure of intentionality,Husserl reveals how the spatiality of things is constructed by our cognition based on various specific manifestation processes,but this spatial study based on a purely cognitive perspective still fails to fully reveal the nature of many spatial experiences.In Heidegger’s phenomenological perspective,space should be revealed and manifested in itself and by itself,while the “cognitive” perspective has predetermined its ready-made form of the observed and thus has omitted the origin of spatiality’s manifestation.Heidegger argues that the basis for the formation of space and its original appearance should be based first of all on the existential vision of Dasein.In this holistic vision of Dasein,which is based on the structure of“Being-in-the-world” and “care”,readiness-to-hand is the more original presentation of what Dasein encounters,and the primordial spatiality of Dasein is embodied in the circumspecting concern with the equipment and its region.Heidegger names one of the important spatial features of Dasein with “de-severance”,which portrays Dasein as always in the act of “removing the distant” and “bringing things close”.While another spatial characteristic is “directionality”,i.e.,the formulation of an original direction toward the place of something.Heidegger’s use of the notion of “near and far”(especially “closeness”)to characterize the primordial spatiality of Dasein is not an accident on a metaphorical level,but at the same time implicitly reveals the nature of spatiality in two dimensions: first,it relates to and reveals the original or primordial intentionality of Dasein,and second,it directly represents the relationship between Dasein and the truth of Being,that is,freedom and aletheia,or the uncoverness of beings.Therefore,Dasein is essentially spatial in terms of its own structure,and this spatiality reveals the essence of the "Da" of Dasein.The relationship between spatiality and temporality should also be considered in the context of the deeper conditions of presence of the beings.And based on the concern for the ontological basis of spatiality,Heidegger in fact skips over the discussion of the body,an approach that has its reasons,but is also something that deserves further debate.Architecture is not merely an independent object created by our construction techniques,nor is its relationship to us a mere external accommodation and use.We build buildings because we are essentially dwelling.The being of man is dwelling in the essential sense,that is,the way in which the “mortals” stand and be on the earth.Because man is dwelling,man has always been building,and building is this“letting-dwell”,which is generally embodied in our act of constructing.Further,dwelling is based on a kind of protection according to freedom,and dwelling is the protection that letting everything stand in its essence.This active protection reveals the nature of man as remaining in the state of beings’ disclosing and as committing himself to the realm of the truth of Being.And the essence of architecture should be the protection of this protection,architecture is itself as a “letting-dweller”.Therefore,our demands for architecture are not only functional and aesthetic,but the actual demands for architectural style and structural arrangement are essentially an evaluation of whether architecture provides us with a better dwelling according to our own nature.The problem with some buildings today is that they deviate from this standard,even to the point of making us forget the essential dwelling with the ideology of constructed objects.In a way,the earthquake has awakened us from this oblivion,and in the destruction of what we have taken for granted as “standing”,we have been able to reconnect with what dwelling is.The risk of forgetting this foundation is also evident everywhere in today’s urban life.Whether it is the developed roads,various means of transportation,or the networks that technology has provided us with,on the surface they have increased our ability to move through space and reduced the distance between us and other things,but in reality these results do not bring any “closeness”.