I've decided to document my process of researching and writing about the history of concepts of space. It is a topic about which I have written before (my dissertation was about the concept of space in Plato's Timaeus), but it has been at least 6 years since I have worked on these texts. I am looking forward to revisiting these texts and discovering new ones as well.
I am hoping that, for readers of this series, this will offer a window into how research is conducted in philosophy, what the writing process is like, and later, if all goes well, we'll work together through the submission process. My goal is to make my process for thinking and writing philosophy more accessible. Perhaps this can provide a model for others who would like to contribute to philosophical literature as independent philosophers.
I'm interested in investigating concepts of space because, first, these ideas are foundational to how we conceive of embodiment. Bodies are always bodies in space, and our conceptions of space underpin how we conceive of motion, change, growth, and progress. Second, how we theorize socio-political worlds extend from how we conceive of space. As you will see, one of my starting points is the French sociologist Henri Lefebvre, who wrote a seminal text in thinking about the social dimensions of space - The Production of Space. I am especially interested in thinking through the spatial politics of embodying alternate subjectivities - in the production of heterogeneity, if you will.
First things first: I'll need to do a literature review before I begin to develop any of my own ideas of, or begin playing with, spatial concepts. I'll gather a set of the main texts in the philosophy of space and begin reviewing these, doing what I call WUPs or write-ups of these texts. Doing this should give us a sense of the secondary literature and a possible direction for future thinking and writing.
I'm probably going to start by reading the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (henceforth referred to as the SEP) entry on Space and Time in order to get generally oriented and to make a preliminary list of resources from the history of Philosophy. Also, I know that the introduction to Crang and Thrift's Thinking Space (2000) is a great place to start. I'll write up some WUPs and post these in the coming days.