Interpreting space: some problems and complexities

Abstract

Apart from Hungarian and English works, I have consulted several sources in German (barely or not at all known in Hungary) on the complex topic of this article. These works are characterized by a geographical approach. I do not discuss here other fields of regional science. I argue that from the point of view of the natural sciences and geography the denial of the duality of space is unacceptable. This unacceptable denial is tantamount to a one-sided anthropocentric approach according to which space is only a human construct. Physical space existed before human beings have and will continue to exist in post-human times as well. In Hungary, it is not quantity that has constituted the real problem for theoretical research on space, but rather the failure to integrate research findings on non-European cultures. Globally, we may safely talk about a resurgent interest in space. This is due in no small measure to the relativization and pluralization of distance and to our new life in cyberspace. Absolute space has gained in value considerably. The main reason for this, in theoretical matters, is the quantitative “revolution” in geography. But this development also owes, in practice, to the appearance of “coordination technologies” in aerospace research and advances in military equipment. Interdependencies between (geographical and political) spaces, on the one hand, and power, on the other, have become manifest at several levels of magnitude. I cannot undertake to sketch (let alone make a case for) a unified and exhaustive concept of space in this paper. This is not only because there is a whole legion of discipline-specific interpretations, but also because semantic limitations are imposed by the fact that the conceptual articulations represented by the relevant vocabularies of different languages vary in depth.