Friday, January 04, 2019

Towards a Platial Phenomenology of Sound

Place-bound and time-bound in evening rain
And bound by a sound which does not change,
Except that it begins and ends,
Begins again and ends again

-- from "Human Arrangement" by Wallace Stevens



In English we have a simple adjective, "spatial", that means “of or relating to space”. But there is no similar word that means “of or relating to place”. This article will briefly explain why space gets so much attention in Western philosophy, while place falls by the wayside. I will conclude by proposing the neologism "platial" as a useful corrective.