Free Custom «Social Space and Social Time» Essay Paper

For ordinary-everyday representations space and time are something habitual, known and even in some measure obvious. But there are the complicated questions related to these subjects, tensely discussed in the history of philosophy and natural sciences. Now it is impossible to solve them without the support of modern science achievements, and data of social, humanitarian disciplines which open various aspects of existential representations, their roles, and a place in human life and activity.

The social space is a system of social relations. Social relations are numerous and various; we have social relations with family members, neighbors, co-workers and even casual acquaintances etc., therefore the social space should be multidimensional. The expressions a person «has gone upwards» or «has fallen on a life bottom» are related to the social space. The concept of space makes sense only so far as the matter is differentiated, structured. If the world had no difficult structure and if it was not dismembered on subjects, and these subjects, in turn, on the elements connected among them, the concept of space would be not meaningful.

Distribution of senses in social space means their perception  by people who are in certain social relations with a communicant. To understand the special nature social of space as existing, it is important to develop representation about complete system of public life. This system includes the following subjects: the world, which person creates and updates in his/her activity, a person and his/her relation to other people, conditions of human consciousness regulating its activity. All this uniform system exists only thanks to interaction of its parts - the world of things of "the second nature», the world of ideas and the world of human relations. The organization of these parts becomes complicated and varies in the course of historical development. It has special spatial architectonics which is not reduced only to relations of material things, and includes their relation to a person, its social communications and those senses which are fixed in system of socially significant ideas. The world of things of "the second nature» is associated with a person; his/her spatial organization possesses over natural, socially significant characteristics. Spatial forms of the technical devices, ordered space of fields, gardens, irrigated earths, artificially created reservoirs, city architecture - all these are social spatial structures. They do not arise in the nature, but they are formed only thanks to the activity of people and they bear on themselves the press of social relations, characteristic for a certain historical epoch, acting as culturally significant spatial forms.

Specificity of social space is closely connected to specificity of social time which is internal time of public life and natural processes, as though it entered in external relation with it.

Social time is an intuitive sensation of current social life, endured by contemporaries. This sensation depends on intensity of social changes. If in a society, there are not enough changes, social time flows slowly; if there are a lot of changes, time accelerates the course. According to «social hours», decades of stagnation are equal to year of revolutionary reorganization. Representation about time and concept of time makes sense only so far as the world is in a movement and development condition; if the matter was out of movement, the concept of time would be not meaningful.

The question on the informative status of categories of space and time dared differently. One philosopher considered space and time as objective characteristics of life, others - purely subjective concepts characterizing our way of the world perception. There were also philosophers who, recognizing objectivity of space, attributed purely subjective status of a category of time.

 But space and time are objective characteristics of life, as they are mainly related to the materiality and movement of social life.

 To a person the intuitive time sense is not always peculiar to be comprehended. On what the intuitive time sense is based? In our organism there is a set of periodic processes which act as the clock. And the duration of external processes is measured by them. It appears that all organisms have the internal clocks, which function is to measure various vital rhythms - periodically arising and fading activity of cages and separate bodies act.

The person`s brain also possesses certain rhythms of activity. There is alpha–rhythms, which characterize the brain activity.

Social time, as well as social space, has difficult structure. It arises as imposing against each other various time structures. Within the limits of historical time, full of the history characterizing events and, development and change of socioeconomic structures, it is possible to allocate time of a person`s individual life, which is defined by various socially and individually significant events.

In the history of philosophy there were various concepts of space and time. They can be broken into two big classes: substantive and relational concepts. The substantive concept considers space and time as special essence which exists in it, irrespective of material objects. They are represented as arena on which there are objects and developed processes. Just as the arena can exist and certain subjects are placed on it, and any representation can be played by actors, space and time can exist irrespective of material objects and processes. The similar point of view was defended by I. Newton. So representation of Ancient Greek philosophers - atomists (Democritus, Epicurus) about emptiness implicitly assumed the concept substantiality spaces. The relational concept of space and time was developed in a counterbalance to the substantive approach in the history of philosophy. Polemics of G. W. Leibniz against I. Newton on questions on essence of space and time were one of its brightest representations. Leibniz insisted that space and time are special relations between objects and processes and out of them any other activity does not exist.

Interrelation of space-time moving matter

Achievements of a modern science testify to preference of the relational approach to understanding of space and time. In this plan first of all it is necessary to allocate achievements of physics of the 20 century. Creation of the theory of relativity was the considerable step to understanding the nature of space and time which allows deepening, specifying and concretizing philosophical representations about space and time.

The readout system in the physicist - is an image of the real physical laboratory supplied on hours and rulers that is toolkit with which help it is possible to measure spatial and time characteristics of bodies. The Old physics considered that if readout system moves rectilinearly and in regular intervals, spatial intervals and time intervals not vary.

The relativity theory has found out one more essential party of spatially - time relations of the material world. It has revealed deep communication between space and time, having shown that in the process there is a uniform space - time, and separately space and separately time act as its original projections on which it is differently split, depending on character of movement of bodies.

Abstracting ability of human thinking divides space and time, believing that they exist separately from each other. Their compatibility that it is easier to establish is necessary for the description and understanding of the world, analyzing even an everyday life situation. The special theory of relativity has opened internal communication among space and time as forms of life of a matter. On the other hand, as change of spatial time intervals depends on character of movement of a body it was found out that space and time will be defined by conditions of a moving matter. They are that what a moving matter is. Thus, philosophical conclusions from the special theory of relativity testify in favor of relational consideration of space and time: though space and time are objective, their properties depend on character of movement of a matter; they are connected with a moving matter. Idea of the special theory of relativity had the further development and a concrete definition in the general theory of relativity. In this theory it has been shown that space-time geometry is defined by character of a gravitational field.

The spatial structures, characterizing a public life, do not reduce neither to space of the lifeless nature, nor to biological space. Here arises historically special type of spatial relations in which the person as a public being is reproduced and develops progress. At early stages of human history special spatial spheres of ability to live were formed.

 Peculiar features and characteristics of social space are reflected, though they are not always adequate, in outlook of a person of a corresponding historical epoch.

The concept and representation about space, peculiar to various historical epochs, express various historically developing senses of the major world outlook category. In it there is a reflection first of all characteristics and properties of social space through which prism the person considers other spaces of the universe. It is important to consider that world outlook categories, including space categories, not simply reflect social being, but also actively influence a public life. They function as an original matrix, according to which during certain epochs the way of life of people, peculiar to them, is reproduced. Operating in the ratio with this matrix, having acquired understanding of space, containing in it, the real activity of a person reproduces certain types of relations of the social space, including not only relations of subjects, but also their communications with the person. To understand the special nature of social space as objectively existing, it is important to develop representation about complete system of public life. This system includes the subject world as one of its components, which person creates and updates through the activity, a person and its relation to other people, a condition of the human consciousness, regulating its activity. This uniform system exists only due to interaction of its parts - world of things of "the second nature», world of ideas and world of human relations. The organization of these parts becomes complicated and varies in the course of historical development. It has special spatial architectonics which is not reduced only to relations of material things, and includes their relation to a person, its social communications and those senses which are fixed in system of socially significant ideas.

Social time is a measure of variability of the public processes, historically arising transformations to people`s lives. At different stages of social development rhythms of social processes were slowed down by public practice. There were repetitions of already saved up experience, reproduction of actions and acts of the past which acted in the form of sacred traditions. That’s the reason of special value of last time in ability of traditional societies to live.

Thus, socio-historical time flows non-uniformly. It is as though condensed and accelerated in the process of public progress. During a critical restless epoch, a miscellaneous pressing historical time, its saturation by time, by ambiguous events, occurs in much more degrees, than during the periods concerning quiet development. Social time and social space have difficult structures. It arises as various time structures, imposing against each other. Here it is possible to allocate as well time of individual life of a person, which is defined by the course of various socially and individually significant events.

The social space-time polystructural problem, its change at various stages of human history is a subject of discussions in the philosophical literature. Special importance has the analysis of existential structure at different stages of history of a society, studying of the mechanism of its change and development.

Mastered by the person, "humanized", and not mastered ­ space of the nature, from the point of view of natural properties, do not differ­. But in the social plan their distinction is essential. It is defined by relations of the person to the world, historically developing features of reproduction of ways of human activity and behavior.

Peculiar features and characteristics of social space ­ are reflected, though they are not always adequate, in outlook of a person of a corresponding historical epoch. For example, in ancient ­ myths representation of qualitative distinction of parts of space, opposition of the ordered ­ space of human life to other spaces is clearly traced­. In these representations in the fantastic form real ­ distinction between "the humanized" space and space of the nature, remaining out of sphere of the human activity, was reflected­.

Representations habitual to our common sense about ­ space, where all points and directions are identical (these properties are defined by physics as uniformity and isotropous spaces­), have arisen as dominating world outlook images at rather late stages of human history. Their formation, as world outlook reference points in the European culture, occurred during an epoch of formation of early ­ bourgeois relations and it has been connected with fragile world outlook, the orientations, arisen during Middle Ages epoch. The medieval ­ thinking could consider space as some system different places. Each of them ­ was allocated with certain symbolical value. There is differentiation between the terrestrial sinful world and the heavenly world, the world of «pure entities».

To understand the special nature of social space as objectively existing, it is important to develop representation about ­ complete system of public life. This system includes the subject world as one of its components, which person creates and updates through the activity, the person and its relation to other people, the conditions of human consciousness regulating its activity. This uniform system exists only due to interaction of its parts- world of things of "the second nature», world of ideas and world ­ of human relations. The organization of this process becomes complicated and varies ­ in the course of historical development. It has special spatial architectonics which is not reduced only to relations of material things, and includes their relation to the person, its social communications and those senses which ­ are fixed in system of socially significant ideas.The world of things of "the second nature», associates of a person, his/her spatial organization­ possesses supernatural, socially significant characteristics. The examples of social spatial structures are the following: spatial forms of the technical devices, ordered space of fields, gardens, irrigated earths, ­ artificially created reservoirs, city architecture etc. They do not arise in the nature, but they are formed only thanks to the people`s activity; they bear on themselves the press of social relations, characteristic for a certain historical epoch, acting as culturally significant spatial forms.

Specificity of social space is closely connected with ­ specificity of social time which is internal time ­ of public life and ­natural processes, as though it entered in external relation with ­ it.

Social time is a measure of variability of the public processes, historically arising transformations to lives ­ of people. At early stages of social development rhythms of social ­ processes were slowed down. Repetitions of already saved experiences, reproduction of actions and acts of the past, which acted in the form of ­ sacred traditions, were a reference point of public ­ practice­.

Social time, as well as social space, has difficult ­ structure. It arises as various time structures, imposing against each other. Within the limits of historical time, in which there are the characterizing history events,  and development and change of socioeconomic structures, it is possible to allocate time of individual life of a person, which is defined by course of various socially and individually significant events.

Mall semiotics

The main idea of the mall shopping can be examined in context of today's consumption culture. Consumption culture is a process of buying goods not for goods at all, but for emotions that goods can cause. In semiotics shopping malls are primary linked with consumer emotions and acting, so that mall is a sacred space, separated from the outside world, like it was church hundred years ago. The entourage of light, music and bright advertising picture creates a sence of safe and convenience. When of the most important moments in mall is crowded effect that creates subconscious feeling of low prices and a big quantity of opportunities to shop. Moreover, is a moment of sales that causes consumers to buy lavishly lot of goods without any need of them.