The Timespace of Human Activity

On Performance, Society, and History as Indeterminate Teleological Events

By (author) Theodore R. Schatzki

Paperback - £42.00

Publication date:

07 December 2012

Length of book:

278 pages

Publisher

Lexington Books

Dimensions:

224x152mm
6x9"

ISBN-13: 9780739180679

This book shows that a concept of activity timespace drawn from the work of Martin Heidegger provides new insights into the nature of activity, society, and history. Although the book is a work of theory, it has significant implications for the determination and course, not just of activity, but of sociohistorical change as well.

Drawing on empirical examples, the book argues (1) that timespace is a key component of the overall space and time of social life, (2) that interwoven timespaces form an essential infrastructure of important social phenomena such as power, coordinated actions, social organizations, and social systems, and (3) that history encompasses constellations of indeterminate temporalspatial events. The latter conception of history in turn yields a propitious account of how the past exists in the present. In addition, because the concept of activity timespace highlights the teleological character of human action, the book contains an extensive defense of the teleological character of such allegedly ateleological forms of activity as emotional and ceremonial actions. Since, finally, the book's ideas about timespace and activity as an indeterminate event derive from an interpretation of Heidegger, the work furthers understanding of the relevance of his thought for social and historical theory.

The book combines textual interpretation, theoretical argumentation, and empirical substantiation. Many of its empirical examples are taken from the Blue Grass Horse Country around Lexington, Kentucky, where the author resides.
Ted Schatzki is a leading figure in the philosophy of the social sciences. The Timespace of Human Activity represents a major development of the philosophy of practice, articulated in his previous books. Drawing principally on the work of Martin Heidegger, Ted Schatzki explores the way in which the world is constituted through human activity activity and how that world influences the very possibility of our existence. Schatzki builds his analysis through careful exegesis of the works of Heidegger, Lefebvre, Bergson, and others, interspersing his interpretations with vivid examples from everyday life. The book speaks to existential issues which have become central to contemporary debates in the social sciences and philosophy and will be required reading for all those interested in what it is to be human.