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(2017) The changing faces of space, Dordrecht, Springer.

The other's place in the space of the relation

Karl Löwith and Martin Buber as theorists of duheit

Agostino Cera

pp. 57-73

This paper addresses the issue of human spatiality as existential givenness, taking as its fundamental orientation relationality, namely the natural tendency towards the other as my co-man (Mitmensch) for the purposes of instituting, together with him, the first place for such a spatiality: the being-with-one-another (Miteinandersein). If the being-with-one-another embodies the first place of this spatiality, then the ">encounter between an I and a you—that is to say, otherness declined in the second person, as Duheit—represents the culmination of such a place. On this basis the τόπος of the Miteinandersein emerges as an οἶκος and the achievement of such an "oikological' rank makes the space of the relation a real Lebensraum, a living space. Given these assumptions, a comparison will be offered between two paradigmatic modes of interpreting Duheit, the outcomes of a short season in which continental philosophy questioned itself on this issue with unusual urgency and depth. On the one hand, the Zwischenontologie ("Between-ontology") of Martin Buber, on the other, the Mitanthropologie ("With-anthropology") of Karl Löwith. The comparison here proposed will reveal that the philosophical question of otherness is essentially a matter of measure, namely that the promotion of the space of the relation established by I and you to the rank of οἶκος and Lebensraum depends on its ability to stay within the limit of an anthropic perimeter.

Publication details

DOI: 10.1007/978-3-319-66911-3_4

Full citation:

Cera, A. (2017)., The other's place in the space of the relation: Karl Löwith and Martin Buber as theorists of duheit, in F. Masi (ed.), The changing faces of space, Dordrecht, Springer, pp. 57-73.

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