Abstract
In his phenomenological approach, Watsuji does not deal space and time as objective quantities. On the contrary, he deals with them from a viewpoint of human being.
A human being is considered as subject from which space and time are derived. Furthermore, it is human being who subjectively understands space and time.
Ethics, then, is not understood as a matter of individual consciousness or normative value judgment. On the contrary, it is a mode of human existence which implies various values.
Ethical relations necessarily involve other human beings, because the individual is never divorced from his environment (e.g. fūdo 風土). In spatial sense, this ethical relationship is ever-changing, and so is the human being contextualised by the spatial and temporal settings.
Space represents a web of betweenness (aidagara 間柄) which inevitably relates every human activity to activity of other human being. Time represents a certain framework for a cultivation of individuality.
Thus, subjective space of human being is defined by social relations (betweenness) and the individuality of human being defines subjective time. Their mutual interaction shapes subjective, concrete, everyday living.
The aim of my paper is not to give an account of Watsuji's notion of space and time exhaustively. Rather, I would attempt to open a discussion in order to think of space and time not as an objective physical dimension we are thrown into, but rather as a subjective and relative setting.