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hat it is merely an excerpt,it is a courageous initiative.At the moment,such studies are few and far between,owing in part to the fact that Brink’s introduction andunderstanding in China are still in their infancy.

Chapter Two Theoretical Foundation

2.1 The Origin of the Concept of Space

Although the spatial turn did not take place until the second half of the twentiethcentury,the issue of space has been discussed for a long time.Space is a multidisciplinarysubject,and it is therefore difficult to formulate a unified and definitive concept.Space is,broadly speaking,the place occupied by material existence,the boundary between objects,or the relative position of objects,and so on,abstracted to form a concept.Space and timetogether form the fundamental category of material existence,which is one of the basicconceptual frameworks for human thinking.Space is thus a highly intricate and abstractproposition that has been an important topic of discussion in philosophy and physics sinceancient Greek times.

The first of these dates back to ancient Greece,when Plato,in his Timaeus,describedspace as an infinite container for the growth and silence of all things.Aristotle basicallyinherited Plato’s doctrine of the container,but he went further by specifying the form ofspace,realizing that space is not an independent entity,but is dependent on things,onmovement,and denying the existence of a void.In other words,it is the recognition of therelative nature of space,which is finite.Plato and Aristotle lived at a time when the level ofcognition was limited that they were only able to develop a basic understanding of theconcept of space,but were not capable of clearly identifying the nature of space.

2.2 Space Theories

To sum up,the understanding of space before the 20th century mainly started from thediscussion of what space is,its nature,and the relationship between space and time,that is,the unique attributes of space,i.e.,the connotation of space.Moreover,the issue of spacedid not receive sufficient attention,and throughout the modern period space has beentreated together with time,with space in a subordinate position.As the French scholarMichel Foucault remarked on the devaluation of space in an interview:“Space is seen aslifeless,fixed,non-dialectical,static.On the contrary,time is seen as rich,prolific,alive,dialectical”(Foucault,1980:70).Upon entering modern society,marked by the industrialrevolution,the light of reason shone brighter,yet the tradition of praising time anddenigrating space remained strong,and the ultimate of modernity was fixated on time ratherthan space.Time-is-efficiency and time-is-money are mantras that still ring familiar in the21st century.

2.2.1 The Development of Space Theories

This phenomenon did not change until the first half of the 20th century,when thetheory of the extended nature of space was developed.In the first half of the 20th century,geographer Carl Saul introduced anthropology and sociology into human geography,andthe interpretation of cultural landscapes became a central issue in the study of humangeography.Karl Marx examined time as opposed to space.His practical theory of theproduction of space,however,has served as a guide to the spatial turn in social scienceresearch.It is generally accepted that before the 1970s,space was often thought of as anobjective physical environment.

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