Abstract

The purpose of this dissertation is twofold: first, to set forth a social theory of space based upon, but not restricted to, the philosophy of Max Scheler, and second, to apply such a theory to the contemporary experience of space in technological society. Such an experience, I suggest, is marked by a tension between 'societal space' and 'communal place'. Societal space affords one privacy, autonomy, and individual freedom, but it also is fragmented and alienating. Communal place, on the other hand, affords one a sense of integrity, intimacy, and belongingness, but it also seems rigid and stifling. ;The central theses is that, viewed sociologially, space is a value horizon against which, or a value context within which, all experience occurs. That is, the experience of space is largely sociologically conditioned by the ethos, or value comportment, of the group to which one belongs. Consequently there is a correlation between what Scheler terms the 'industrial ethos' and the modern experience of space as 'empty.' ;The experience of space is closely connected with what numerous intellectuals of the twentieth century have described as the 'crisis' of Western man's self-understanding. For if modern man has forgotten who he is and the meaning of his existence, then this is also to say that he has lost his sense of place in the cosmos. ;Our manner of investigating the experience of space is a type of phenomenology that Scheler described as a 'psychic technique of non-resistance.' This technique is applied to interpersonal relations and combined with Scheler's theory of values and sociology of knowledge. Social groups are organic wholes, and their essential cores are their ethoses, or value comportmens, which generate all social relations. Thus all perceptions of space are parts of the organic, comprehensive world-views in and out of which they have grown