Hodological space

Last updated

In psychology, hodological space (from the Greek word hodos, which means "way") refers to the space of possible movement. [1] Unlike the straight line, this space involves the so-called "preferred paths", which serve as a compromise of different domains that include shortest distance, security, minimal work, and maximum experience. [1]

Contents

Background

The German gestalt psychologist Kurt Lewin first introduced this concept in the early part of the 20th century prior to his exile in the United States. [2] It emerged in his attempt to use mathematical concepts to deal with psychological problems and was based on Albert Einstein's notion of "field space" and mathematics from modern topology theory. [3] It was also based on his idea that Euclidean space is hardly experienced by humans since built physical spaces do not accommodate following a straight line. [2]

As a measurement system, the hodological space was used by Lewin to expand the nonquantitative but mathematical representation of structure and position in psychology so that it includes the dynamic and vectorial aspects of the field. [4] At the time, topology was a new field, "To some degree it is possible to give a general mathematical solution using a kind of space which is defined through the possible paths between points, and which one may call 'hodological space.' Lewin's conceptualization identify hodological space as a space that matters, as paths that link people together or distances that keep them apart. [5] Otto Friedrich Bollnow further refined Lewin's notion and described the hodological space as not something that is homogenous nor predetermined since it is extemporaneously expressed as we move through space. [6]

Some authors cite the affinity of hodological space with elements in ancient Greek theater such as the skene structure, which connects onstage and offstage areas; the ekkyklema , a contraption that allowed "inside-out" disclosures; and, the eisodoi , which lead to and from the distance. [7]

The philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre likewise pulls from Lewin's concept in his essay, "Sketch for a Theory of Emotions," wherein he depicts the phenomenological sense or experience of lived-space as being "hodological" in nature. [8] In this experience, all individuals bear a "hodological map" as they exist in any given environment - meaning individuals possess a sub-cognitive and non-representation lived-sense of the pathways of action, instrumental availabilities, closures, openings, potentialities, blockages, varying alternative routes, etc., where this lived sense of space is organized around one's projects. [8] By implication, two individuals occupying the same external space will possess a different phenomenological sense of that space, where this is marked out in accordance with their hodological map - an idea fundamentally similar in kind to Heidegger and his concept of "equipmentality." [9] To make this concrete - when in an environment, say a room, one has a sense of the surrounding rooms, what is in them, what is available to use, what is not, what are the different pathways of action and threat, or where blockages might occur, wherein the actual degree and level to which these possible dynamics come to play within a singular moment of experience, one that is being experienced by an agent right now, in this place, will vary in accordance with the projects and plans of that agent (e.g. a bank robber, a worker, a customer, and a police officer all in the exact same bank). Hence Sartre's use of "Hodological" is trying to hit upon this lived-existential and subjective sense of lived-space that is distinct from scientific, objective, and measurable space, as assumed from a 3rd person perspective. [10] The hodological space has no fixed set of coordinates independent of any particular subject and, instead, there is a constantly varying field of force of the experiencing subject. [11]

According to Gilles Deleuze, the hodological space concretely holds the sensory-motor schema as the field of forces, oppositions, and tensions are resolved according to their goals. [12]

Concepts

A penetrable space can be perceived in two different ways: navigable and navigated. [6] The navigated perception is realized by the hodological space while the former by ambient space. [6] An ambient space or ambient configuration space is the space surrounding an object. According to this conceptualization, we do not move within a hodological space but that it is created once we move through an ambient space. [6] The space is interpreted as "lived" and is distinguished from the Euclidean space, which is considered "represented". It is, thus, analogous to "seeing an object and making the hodological leap from this actuality to its virtual potentiality of the past in forming the sensory-motor connection." [12]

Hodological space is articulated by a nonquantitative, mathematical analysis that does not necessarily involve the consideration of distance. [13] Here, the distance of points A and B in terms of such space may be different from the distance from B to A. This could happen in certain instances such as when one feels that the distance from home to school is greater or shorter than the distance from school to home. [13]

Hodological space is described as more general than the space of Euclid and Riemann [see metric space], but not as general as topological space, in which it is not possible to define distances or directions." [14] It is noted that Lewin's conceptualization was more mental rather than a physical typology. [12] According to Gilles Deleuze, the hodological space concretely holds the sensory-motor schema as the field of forces, oppositions, and tensions are resolved according to their goals. [12] Drawing from Lewin's idea that hodological space is equated with conscious and planned movement across measurable Euclidean space, he believed that it can be applied to the ability to judge actions in moral terms. [15] Deleuze also put forward the concept of time-image, which transpires prior to hodological space. [16]

Applications

Hodological space can be applied to different fields. For example, in the fields of literature and film, it typifies a narration or a speech that is referred to as "economical" allowing for the simplest route or an appropriate detour. [12] According to Deleuze, hodological space addresses the issue of overlapping perspectives so that a given object can be effectively grasped. [17]

Jean-Paul Sartre also used the concept of hodological space to explain his notion that consciousness is embodied. It is the basis of his argument that the individual is characterized through intentional and goal-directed activity - that goals or valences are positive if agents are drawn to them and negative if they are avoided. [18]

In psychology, hodological space may be used to explain personal causality and the goal of being in a certain state or producing an effect. [19]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Euclidean geometry</span> Mathematical model of the physical space

Euclidean geometry is a mathematical system attributed to ancient Greek mathematician Euclid, which he described in his textbook on geometry, Elements. Euclid's approach consists in assuming a small set of intuitively appealing axioms (postulates) and deducing many other propositions (theorems) from these. Although many of Euclid's results had been stated earlier, Euclid was the first to organize these propositions into a logical system in which each result is proved from axioms and previously proved theorems.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gilles Deleuze</span> French philosopher (1925–1995)

Gilles Louis René Deleuze was a French philosopher who, from the early 1950s until his death in 1995, wrote on philosophy, literature, film, and fine art. His most popular works were the two volumes of Capitalism and Schizophrenia: Anti-Oedipus (1972) and A Thousand Plateaus (1980), both co-written with psychoanalyst Félix Guattari. His metaphysical treatise Difference and Repetition (1968) is considered by many scholars to be his magnum opus.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Space</span> Framework of distances and directions

Space is a three-dimensional continuum containing positions and directions. In classical physics, physical space is often conceived in three linear dimensions. Modern physicists usually consider it, with time, to be part of a boundless four-dimensional continuum known as spacetime. The concept of space is considered to be of fundamental importance to an understanding of the physical universe. However, disagreement continues between philosophers over whether it is itself an entity, a relationship between entities, or part of a conceptual framework.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Thought</span> Cognitive process independent of the senses

In their most common sense, the terms thought and thinking refer to cognitive processes that can happen independently of sensory stimulation. Their most paradigmatic forms are judging, reasoning, concept formation, problem solving, and deliberation. But other mental processes, like considering an idea, memory, or imagination, are also often included. These processes can happen internally independent of the sensory organs, unlike perception. But when understood in the widest sense, any mental event may be understood as a form of thinking, including perception and unconscious mental processes. In a slightly different sense, the term thought refers not to the mental processes themselves but to mental states or systems of ideas brought about by these processes.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Distance</span> Separation between two points

Distance is a numerical or occasionally qualitative measurement of how far apart objects, points, people, or ideas are. In physics or everyday usage, distance may refer to a physical length or an estimation based on other criteria. The term is also frequently used metaphorically to mean a measurement of the amount of difference between two similar objects or a degree of separation. Most such notions of distance, both physical and metaphorical, are formalized in mathematics using the notion of a metric space.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Euclidean distance</span> Length of a line segment

In mathematics, the Euclidean distance between two points in Euclidean space is the length of the line segment between them. It can be calculated from the Cartesian coordinates of the points using the Pythagorean theorem, and therefore is occasionally called the Pythagorean distance.

Experience refers to conscious events in general, more specifically to perceptions, or to the practical knowledge and familiarity that is produced by these processes. Understood as a conscious event in the widest sense, experience involves a subject to which various items are presented. In this sense, seeing a yellow bird on a branch presents the subject with the objects "bird" and "branch", the relation between them and the property "yellow". Unreal items may be included as well, which happens when experiencing hallucinations or dreams. When understood in a more restricted sense, only sensory consciousness counts as experience. In this sense, experience is usually identified with perception and contrasted with other types of conscious events, like thinking or imagining. In a slightly different sense, experience refers not to the conscious events themselves but to the practical knowledge and familiarity they produce. Hence, it is important that direct perceptual contact with the external world is the source of knowledge. So an experienced hiker is someone who has actually lived through many hikes, not someone who merely read many books about hiking. This is associated both with recurrent past acquaintance and the abilities learned through them.

Schizoanalysis is a set of theories and techniques developed by philosopher Gilles Deleuze and psychoanalyst Félix Guattari, first expounded in their book Anti-Oedipus (1972) and continued in their follow-up work, A Thousand Plateaus (1980).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Manifold</span> Topological space that locally resembles Euclidean space

In mathematics, a manifold is a topological space that locally resembles Euclidean space near each point. More precisely, an -dimensional manifold, or -manifold for short, is a topological space with the property that each point has a neighborhood that is homeomorphic to an open subset of -dimensional Euclidean space.

In philosophy, events are objects in time or instantiations of properties in objects. On some views, only changes in the form of acquiring or losing a property can constitute events, like the lawn's becoming dry. According to others, there are also events that involve nothing but the retaining of a property, e.g. the lawn's staying wet. Events are usually defined as particulars that, unlike universals, cannot repeat at different times. Processes are complex events constituted by a sequence of events. But even simple events can be conceived as complex entities involving an object, a time and the property exemplified by the object at this time. Traditionally, metaphysicians tended to emphasize static being over dynamic events. This tendency has been opposed by so-called process philosophy or process ontology, which ascribes ontological primacy to events and processes.

Affect is a concept, used in the philosophy of Baruch Spinoza and elaborated by Henri Bergson, Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, that places emphasis on bodily or embodied experience. The word affect takes on a different meaning in psychology and other fields.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Body without organs</span> Concept in philosophy

The body without organs is a fuzzy concept used in the work of French philosophers Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari. The concept describes the unregulated potential of a body—not necessarily human— without organizational structures imposed on its constituent parts, operating freely. The term was first used by French writer Antonin Artaud in his 1947 play To Have Done With the Judgment of God, later adapted by Deleuze in his book The Logic of Sense, and ambiguously expanded upon by himself and Guattari in both volumes of their work Capitalism and Schizophrenia.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">The Imaginary (psychoanalysis)</span> Term in Lacanian Psychoanalysis

The Imaginary is one of three terms in the psychoanalytic perspective of Jacques Lacan, along with the Symbolic and the Real. Each of the three terms emerged gradually over time, undergoing an evolution in Lacan's own development of thought. "Of these three terms, the 'imaginary' was the first to appear, well before the Rome Report of 1953…[when the] notion of the 'symbolic' came to the forefront." Indeed, looking back at his intellectual development from the vantage point of the 1970s, Lacan epitomised it as follows:

"I began with the Imaginary, I then had to chew on the story of the Symbolic ... and I finished by putting out for you this famous Real."

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Space (mathematics)</span> Mathematical set with some added structure

In mathematics, a space is a set endowed with a structure defining the relationships among the elements of the set. A subspace is a subset of the parent space which retains the same structure. While modern mathematics uses many types of spaces, such as Euclidean spaces, linear spaces, topological spaces, Hilbert spaces, or probability spaces, it does not define the notion of "space" itself.

In topological and vector psychology, field theory is a psychological theory that examines patterns of interaction between the individual and the total field, or environment. The concept first made its appearance in psychology with roots in the holistic perspective of Gestalt theories. It was developed by Kurt Lewin, a Gestalt psychologist, in the 1940s.

Geometry is a branch of mathematics concerned with properties of space such as the distance, shape, size, and relative position of figures. Geometry is, along with arithmetic, one of the oldest branches of mathematics. A mathematician who works in the field of geometry is called a geometer. Until the 19th century, geometry was almost exclusively devoted to Euclidean geometry, which includes the notions of point, line, plane, distance, angle, surface, and curve, as fundamental concepts.

Geometrical–optical are visual illusions, also optical illusions, in which the geometrical properties of what is seen differ from those of the corresponding objects in the visual field.

Visual space is the experience of space by an aware observer. It is the subjective counterpart of the space of physical objects. There is a long history in philosophy, and later psychology of writings describing visual space, and its relationship to the space of physical objects. A partial list would include René Descartes, Immanuel Kant, Hermann von Helmholtz, William James, to name just a few.

The concept of "The Void" in philosophy encompasses the ideas of nothingness and emptiness, a notion that has been interpreted and debated across various schools of metaphysics. In ancient Greek philosophy, the Void was discussed by thinkers like Democritus, who saw it as a necessary space for atoms to move, thereby enabling the existence of matter. Contrasting this, Aristotle famously denied the existence of a true Void, arguing that nature inherently avoids a vacuum.

<i>Francis Bacon: The Logic of Sensation</i> 1981 book by Gilles Deleuze

Francis Bacon: The Logic of Sensation is a 1981 book by philosopher Gilles Deleuze, analyzing the work of twentieth-century British figurative painter Francis Bacon. In this biography, Deleuze discusses aesthetics, objects of perception ('percepts'), and sensation.

References

  1. 1 2 Pérez-Gómez, Alberto; Parcell, Stephen (1999). Chora 3: Intervals in the Philosophy of Architecture. Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press. p. 26. ISBN   0773517111.
  2. 1 2 Aarseth, Espen; Günzel, Stephan (2019). Ludotopia: Spaces, Places and Territories in Computer Games. Bielefeld: transcript Verlag. p. 28. ISBN   978-3-8376-4730-3.
  3. ↑ Edling, Christofer; Rydgren, Jens (2011). Sociological Insights of Great Thinkers: Sociology Through Literature, Philosophy, and Science. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO. p. 118. ISBN   978-0-313-38470-7.
  4. ↑ Valsiner, Jaan (2011). Thinking in Psychological Science: Ideas and Their Makers. New Brunswick: Transaction Publishers. p. 259. ISBN   9780765803481.
  5. ↑ Rehm, Rush (2020). The Play of Space: Spatial Transformation in Greek Tragedy. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. pp. 18–19. ISBN   978-0-691-05809-2.
  6. 1 2 3 4 McMurtrie, Robert James (2017). The Semiotics of Movement in Space. New York: Routledge. p. 41. ISBN   9781138191716.
  7. ↑ Rehm, Rush (2009). The Play of Space: Spatial Transformation in Greek Tragedy. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. p. 270. ISBN   978-0691058092.
  8. 1 2 Sartre, Jean-Paul. "Sketch for a Theory of the Emotions." (1939). Routeledge Press, 2008. pp. 34-62
  9. ↑ Heidegger, Martin. "Being and Time." (2008). Macquierre-Robinson Press. pp. 95-145
  10. ↑ ibid. Sartre, Jean-Paul. pp 45
  11. ↑ Wider, Kathleen V. (1997). The Bodily Nature of Consciousness: Sartre and Contemporary Philosophy of Mind. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. p. 130. ISBN   0-8014-3395-9.
  12. 1 2 3 4 5 Batcho, James (2018). Terrence Malick's Unseeing Cinema: Memory, Time and Audibility. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan. p. 69. ISBN   9783319764207.
  13. 1 2 Weiner, Bernard (1985). Human Motivation. New York: Springer-Verlag. p. 147. ISBN   9781461295600.
  14. ↑ Levin, Kurt (1933). "Vectors, cognitive processes, and Mr. Tolman's criticism". Journal of General Psychology. 8 (2): 318–345. doi:10.1080/00221309.1933.9713191.
  15. ↑ Vhoi, Jinhee; Frey, Mattias (2014). Cine-Ethics: Ethical Dimensions of Film Theory, Practice, and Spectatorship. Oxon: Routledge. p. 65. ISBN   9780415821254.
  16. ↑ Deamer, David (2016). Deleuze's Cinema Books: Three Introductions to the Taxonomy of Images. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. p. 62. ISBN   978-1-4744-0767-0.
  17. ↑ Deleuze, Gilles (2005). Cinema II. Translated by Tomlinson, Hugh; Galeta, Robert. A&C Black. p. 125. ISBN   9780826477064.
  18. ↑ Gordon, Ḥayim (1999). Dictionary of Existentialism. Westport, CT: Greenwood Publishing Group. p. 93. ISBN   0-313-27404-5.
  19. ↑ Heider, F. (2013). The Psychology of Interpersonal Relations. New York: Psychology Press. ISBN   978-1-134-92225-3.


This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.