The Timespace of Human Activity

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. -- Anthony King, University of Exeter In this exciting and inspiring book, Schatzki turns previous accounts of social practice inside-out to reveal the timespace of human activity. With each chapter new lines of enquiry come tumbling forth, challenging and at the same time invigorating established agendas across sociology, psychology, history, and geography. -- Elizabeth Shove, Lancaster University With this book, Ted Schatzki provides a remarkable synthesis and expansion of his past work. By adding considerations of time and space, practice, and the role of performance, the ceremonial, and teleological in human action to a Heideggerian starting point, he gives us a novel approach to the philosophy of action that gets beyond formalism and meaningfully connects with substantive problems. -- Stephen Turner, University of South Florida

Theodore R. Schatzki is professor and associate dean of faculty in the department of philosophy at the University of Kentucky. He is author of Social Practices: A Wittgensteinian Approach to Human Activity and the Social, The Site of the Social: A Philosophical Exploration of the Constitution of Social Life and Change, and Martin Heidegger: Theorist of Space, as well as coeditor of The Practice Turn in Contemporary Theory.

Chapter 1 Preface Part 2 Chapter 1. The Timespace of Human Activity Chapter 3 Objective Time and Space Chapter 4 Social Space-time Chapter 5 The Timespace of Human Activity Chapter 6 On the Intellectual Contexts of Activity Timespace Chapter 7 The Social Character of Activity Timespace Part 8 Chapter 2. Activity Timespace and Social Life Chapter 9 Human Coexistence Chapter 10 The Coordination of Actions Chapter 11 Social Organizations, Events, and Systems Chapter 12 Harvey on Space-Time and Space-Time Compression Chapter 13 Conflict and Power Chapter 14 Landscapes Part 15 Chapter 3. The Dominion of Teleology Chapter 16 Outline of a Theory of Human Activity Chapter 17 Emotional Activity Chapter 18 Ceremony and Ritual Chapter 19 Sacred Worlds Part 20 Chapter 4. Activity and History as Indeterminate Temporalspatial Events Chapter 21 Human Activity as Event Chapter 22 The Indeterminacy of Activity Chapter 23 Human Activity as Flowing Chapter 24 On History and Historicity