Metaphilosophy and the Production of Space: A Metaphilosophical Reading of the Politics of Space and the Creation of the Modern City in Lefebvre's Thought

Document Type : علمی - پژوهشی

Authors

1 Assistant Professor of Philosophy, University of Kurdistan, Sanandaj, Iran.

2 Ph.D. in Sociology

10.48308/kj.2025.239979.1324

Abstract

A significant part of contemporary transformation is linked to social and urban relations. Such changes must be examined beyond traditional philosophical approaches and within the context of urban society and its associated material and cultural dynamics. From a metaphilosophical perspective, urban reality is both a socio-political-economic construct and a generative force that simultaneously produces and expresses social relations on both material and cultural levels. Traditional philosophy has typically detached its concepts from concrete contexts and lived bodies, striving for totalization and identity. Lefebvre’s metaphilosophy rejects the imposition of such disembodied totality and abstract rationality on the city. Instead, it creates independent and spontaneous practical-material forms within the fabric of everyday urban life to engage with reality.
This study aims to examine Lefebvre’s metaphilosophical insights into the politics of space and his role in redefining and reshaping urban space. In this context, overcoming the traditional concept of space and imagining a dynamic, functionalist notion of space is proposed as a central aspect of realizing metaphilosophy—through which concrete, practical, and embodied approaches to space emerge. The central questions of this investigation are: To what extent did Lefebvre, by proposing metaphilosophy as a tool to critique traditional philosophy, convey a deeper understanding of the relationship between subject and space and thus arrive at a new definition of the modern city? And what possibilities does this reading open up? In this sense, metaphilosophy seeks moments in which the city emerges as a product of collective civic practice, rather than being presupposed as a phenomenon predetermined by dominant discourses, as in metaphysical approaches.

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References

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Shenakht
Volume 18, Issue 2 - Serial Number 90
September 2025
Pages 53-71

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History

  • Receive Date: 18 May 2025
  • Revise Date: 02 June 2025
  • Accept Date: 30 July 2025

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