L'etica dello spazio (una riflessione topologica)

(Ethics of Space (A Topological Reflection))

Abstract

The author’s intention in this essay is not to explain the “concept” of space but rather understand the experience out of which such a concept is formed moving from the “originary subjects” of this experience as well of the experience of movement and time that are its necessary correlates. Considering as point of reference the centrality of spatial experience, such subjects (from living entities to humans) are defined as “topoi.” Topoi are not static places but rather spatializing and temporalizing “centers of force.” The question that marks the topological move in the essay is as follows: Are the “originary subjects,” the topoi truly being and acting in themselves and for themselves? Or are the topoi for “others” insofar as each “topos” acts as stimulated by other forces, by other topoi? Or for “other” because no topos is for itself given that its “possibility for being” does not depend on itself? From out of this radical heteronomy of the spatial experience, which is more than understood, felt, and suffered, there may emerge an ethics that goes beyond the polis and the human being without therefore demanding the relinquishment of human beings, consciousness, and polis. This is so because it does not aim at the Sky but at the Earth.