Abstrakt
As Hans-Rainer Sepp writes in the Introduction to his Outline of Oikological Philosophy, phenomenology transforms the question of the "what" into that of the "how." What an experienced object is-that is, its objective sense-is investigated in terms of how we experience it-that is, in terms of the acts of consciousness that bring it to presence. Phenomenology, however, does not consider the "where, the place from which every relation first becomes possible and, on occasion, actual." What exactly is this "where"? How are we to locate it? If we take place as an ultimate referent, then there is no place to place it.
In fact, to attempt to do so would involve us in an infinite regress of seeking a place for a place, and seeking a further place for this placing place, and so on. As ultimate, then, place has to be analyzed in its own terms.
In what follows, I am going to engage in this analysis. I will consider, first, place in general; then I will turn my attention to living creatures and place as defined by the process of being-alive.
Finally, I will consider the place of the subject. Place, throughout will be thought of as an environmental concept.
It will involve the relation of a thing to what surrounds it.