“Things take place.” A simple saying and one that we employ often. Prima facie, it says not much more than that appearance and happening have been or are in the process of being. However, in doing so, the saying points toward something which, by virtue of its simplicity and pervasiveness, starts to become rather complex. It speaks to, or at least it highlights, one of, if not the most fundamental conditions of experience, and indeed, of existence: place. Everything that is, is in a place, and everything that happens, happens within a place. Place, in this sense, touches, grounds, and impacts upon all thought, speech, and action. Accordingly, its conceptual traction spreads far and wide; more than a simple location within space-time, place is constitutive for all manner of existence and experience. And so the question, or questions, which concern both place itself and the constitutive role it plays begin to become rather complex, and furthermore, rather important. When we understand the decisive, and indeed, foundational role of place, questions relating to how it is understood, found, and experienced take on more than a phenomenological or ontological purview. For insofar as place is a grounding condition of existence and experience, topographical questions also become paradigmatically existential and ethical. In this case, a nuanced understanding of place is not only of a central concern to the individual’s sense of being-in-the-world but also to the individual’s relation with the world and the others with which they share it. In this presentation, I will elaborate on the importance of place by highlighting its constitutive role in experience and existence, and moreover, demonstrate its intrinsic relation to the domain of ethics. In doing so, I will give an overview of the central questions of my thesis and point towards the direction in which it is heading.
