This monograph investigates the development of human spatial knowledge
by analyzing its elementary structures and studying how it is further
shaped by various societal conditions. By taking a thoroughly historical
perspective on knowledge and integrating results from various
disciplines, this work throws new light on long-standing problems in
epistemology such as the relation between experience and preformed
structures of cognition.
What do the orientation of apes and the theory of relativity have to do
with each other? Readers will learn how different forms of spatial
thinking are related in a long-term history of knowledge. Scientific
concepts of space such as Newton's absolute space or Einstein's curved
spacetime are shown to be rooted in pre-scientific structures of
knowledge, while at the same time enabling the integration of an ever
expanding corpus of experiential knowledge.
This work addresses all readers interested in questions of epistemology,
in particular philosophers and historians of science. It integrates
forms of spatial knowledge from disciplines including anthropology,
developmental psychology and cognitive sciences, amongst others.