enowning
Wednesday, October 19, 2011
 
Stuart Elden on time-space in the Beiträge.
The treatment of time and space together is a correction of the one-sided analyses of Being and Time. Time here is the possible truth for being (and the nonmetaphysical beyng at that), but it must be thought in relation to space in this regard, unlike in Being and Time when temporality was the guiding clue for the question of being. In this alone it is clear that Heidegger is trying to think their relation, which in itself is important in contemporary debates within geography.

As I have argued elsewhere, the issue of the reassertion of space within social theory can neither be at the expense of time, nor allow space to be assimilated into an otherwise unproblematised historical method. Indeed, Heidegger's suggestion is more than time - space needing to be thought together, instead of apart. Time - space is not simply the coupling of time and space, but the very notion that allows each to be thought distinctly. Zeit - Raum is not the same as Zeitraum-that is, a span of time, a notion that betrays a measured, mathematical sense. Thinking the idea of time (the Wesen, the essence of time), forces us-through the notion of the Da, the there or the here of being, being-the-there-to come to terms with space. The reverse is also the case. However, we should note the caution that neither time nor space here are understandable in terms of "their ordinary representations", a point hinted at above in the passage from the Grundfragen der Philosophie (Basic questions of philosophy). Time - space takes on a particularly privileged role in the Beiträge, as "originally the site for the moment of propriation [Augenblicks-Stätte des Ereignisses]". Although this is perhaps more important for Heidegger scholarship than for geography, we should note that this is the way to understand the notion of Da-sein, as "the site for the moment of the grounding of the truth of beyng". Da-sein, which-according to Being and Time-is the being for whom, in its being, its being is in question, is here seen as similarly related to this key issue.
 
Comments:
I like Stambaugh's characterization of the Beitrage: "At times it is more hermetic than hermeneutic."

I am not willing to purchase the article that is the source of the excerpt to answer my question, but I cannot help wondering if Elden is actually able to describe some consequences for geography of "Time-Space," as opposed to telling us what it is not.
 
The article's gone behind a pay wall, and it doesn't look like I saved a copy. Sucks.

But wait. It looks like it's available from Stuart's blog:
http://progressivegeographies.com/free-downloads/. I'll update the link.
 
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