Even our embroilment in technology brings with it an unsuspected return to place. Granting that the literal locus of the technologically engaged person is a matter of comparative indifference, this locus is still not nowhere. As I watch television or correspond by e-mail, my immediate surroundings may not matter greatly to the extent that I am drawn into the drama I am watching or into the words I am typing or reading. But a new sense of place emerges from this very circumstance: “virtual place,” as it can be called, in keeping with current discussions of “virtual reality.” In inhabiting a virtual place, I have the distinct impression that the persons with whom I am communicating or the figures I am watching, though not physically present, nevertheless present themselves to me in a quasi face-to-face interaction. They are accessible to me and I to them (at least in the case of e-mail or call-in radio shows): I seem to share the “same space” with others who are in fact stationed elsewhere on the planet. This virtual coimplacement can occur in image or word, or in both. The comparative coziness and discreteness of such compresence—its sense of having boundaries if not definite limits—makes it a genuine, if still not fully understood, phenomenon of place.4
As for the philosophical scene—which is most explicitly at stake in this book—even within the most rebarbative purlieu there lurk more than echoes and ghosts of place. Both “politics” and “ethics” go back to Greek words that signify place: polis and ēthea, “city-state” and “habitats,” respectively. The very word “society” stems from socius, signifying “sharing”—and sharing is done in a common place. More than the history of words is at issue here. Almost every major ethical and political thinker of the century has been concerned, directly or indirectly, with the question of community. As Victor Turner has emphasized, a communitas is not just a matter of banding together but of bonding together through rituals that actively communalize people—and that require particular places in which to be enacted.5 When Hannah Arendt proclaims—or, rather, reclaims—the polis as an arena of overt contestation, she invokes a bounded and institutionally sanctioned place as the basis for “the public sphere of appearance.”6 John Rawls’s idea of “the objective circumstances of justice” in human society entails (even if his discussion does not spell out) the concrete specificities of implacement.7 More surprising still, certain developments in language and logic are promising from a placial point of view. I am thinking of investigations into the structure of informal argumentation, a structure likely to reflect local custom and culture; a renewed interest in rhetoric, alike among epigones of Leo Strauss as well as followers of Jacques Derrida and Paul DeMan; not to mention the notion of family resemblance first introduced by Wittgenstein, a notion that implies (even though it does not espouse) the special pertinence of locality and region to basic issues in epistemology and philosophy of language and mind.
And yet “place,” despite these auspicious directions in contemporary thought, is rarely named as such—and even more rarely discussed seriously. Place is still concealed, “still veiled,” as Heidegger says specifically of space.8 To ponder the fate of place at this moment thus assumes a new urgency and points to a new promise. The question is, can we bring place out of hiding and expose it to renewed scrutiny? A good place to start is by a consideration of its own complex history. To become familiar with this history is to be in a better position to attest to the pervasiveness of place in our lives: in our language and logic as in our ethics and politics, in our bodily bearing and in our personal relations. To uncover the hidden history of place is to find a way back into the place-world—a way to savor the renascence of place even on the most recalcitrant terrain.
Acknowledgments
The most direct inspiration for this book stems from a graduate seminar I taught at Emory University in the spring of 1992, held under the auspices of the philosophy department and at the instigation of its chairman, David Carr. The intense interest in the history of place that was palpable in that seminar—animated by the keen questioning of the remarkably responsive students who were present—brought home to me the need for a book on the subject. The story of philosophical accounts of place has not yet been told, and I decided (in the wake of my earlier descriptive efforts to discern place more accurately) to tell this story in a comprehensive format. Other graduate seminars substantially aided my efforts: one at the New School for Social Research (1993) and one at the State University of Stony Brook (1994). In each case, my tenative formulations were increasingly refined, thanks to the intense scrutiny of my students. I also presented my views at a week-long seminar on “The Senses of Place” at the School of American Research in Santa Fe, New Mexico, where a number of anthropologists gave me renewed direction and purpose; I especially wish to thank Keith Basso and Steven Feld for their hosting of this event and for the guidance of their pioneering work. I was the beneficiary as well of public audiences when I lectured on the topic, most notably at Vanderbilt University, SUNY at Binghamton, New School for Social Research, Duquesne University, and Yale University.
A number of individuals made essential contributions to my ongoing research into the hidden history of place. Janet Gyatso read many parts of the manuscript and offered invaluable advice, particularly with regard to clarity of argumentation, substance, and style. Without her congenial and warm encouragement, the book might not ever have seen the light of day. The entire manuscript profited from Kurt Wildermuth’s discerning and disciplined look. I also benefited from exchanges with Robert Gooding-Williams, Iris Young, Tom Flynn, David Michael Levin, Elizabeth Behnke, Henry Tylbor, Bruce Wilshire, Glen Mazis, and, especially, Elizabeth Grosz.
My colleagues at Stony Brook were generous in their assistance. Tom Altizer discussed with me my fledgling formulations of mythical accounts of place, and Peter Manchester led me to reconsider my interpretation of the Timaeus. Irene Klaver was of immense help in my treatment of Plato, Husserl, Merleau-Ponty, and Irigaray. I learned a great deal from Lee Miller’s comments on my treatment of medieval figures (especially Nicholas of Cusa), Walter Watson’s close reading of my treatment of Aristotle, Robert Crease’s remarks on my treatment of Leibniz, David Allison’s perusal of the chapter on Descartes, François Raffoul’s and Jeffrey Edwards’s sagacious insights into Kant, and Mary Rawlinson’s rectifying of my discussion of Irigaray. I thank Celian Schoenbach for diligently typing in final changes to the manuscript, and Ann Cahill for preparing the index.
I am grateful to Brenda Casey for help on a number of perplexing points that were evading me even at the end. Constance Casey was an important presence throughout. Consulted at critical moments was Eric Casey, whose knowledge of the languages and cultures of the ancient world proved indispensable to the completion of this book.
James Hillman urged me to pursue place into its most recondite corners so as to convey its story fully and effectively. Conversations with him on aspects of place—particularly its neglected importance in our own time—have been of continuing inspiration. I was fortunate to be so effectively supported in this project by the intelligent, sensitive efforts of Edward Dimendberg, philosophy editor at the University of California Press. He asked me to put this book together in the first place, and he gave me sound direction at every point. To Michelle Nordon of the same institution I am indebted for her caring and responsive supervision of the entire publication process.
Part One
From Void to Vessel
1
Avoiding the Void
Primeval Patterns
But, first, they say, there was only the Creator, Taiowa. All else was endless space, Tokpela. There was no beginning and end, time, shape, and life in the mind of Taiowa the Creator.
—Hopi creation myth
At first there was neither Earth nor Sky. Shuzanghu and his wife Zumiang-Nui lived above. One day Shuzanghu said to his wife, “How long must we live without a place to rest our feet?”
—Dhammai legend
I
Following Nietzsche’s admonition, in The Genealogy of Morals, that “man would sooner have the void for his purpose than be void of purpose,”1 there is an area of human experience