Klaus Hamberger

Elements of a Theory of Social Space

The intimate analogies between spatial and social structures are well known to social scientists. What is more, they are widely reflected in the conceptual and linguistic systems of many societies, and frequently employed by them to project their structures into physical space: Houses and settlements thus become the "concrete symbol of the social system" (Leroi-Gourhan).

The similarities between spatial and social relations are not only of an outward and formal nature. I will try to substantiate the claim that they rest on a genuine epistemological equivalence - which means that the notion of "social space" can appropriately be used to designate not only the social organisation of physical space (e.g. a village) or the spatial representation of social structures (e.g. a diagram), but a cognitive instrument for the constitution of an objective world of experience, which accomplishes the same function in the case of social phenomena as it does in the case of physical phenomena (albeit not with the same results). From this viewpoint, I shall examine the question how far the difference between the physical and the social world can be defined in terms of spatial structure.

The paper is the based on a research project conducted since October 2001 at the Cohn Institute for the History and Philosophy of Science and Ideas. The project is financed by the Austrian Science Fund (FWF).

A copy of the paper can be obtained from the author (hamberk2@post.tau.ac.il or klaus.hamberger@univie.ac.at)