Territoriality: The Transcendental, Primordial Feature of Modern Societies

Abstract

Abstract. This article argues that one feature of all societies is territoriality and that one element of territoriality is the transcendental, primordial attachment. Consequently, the article is critical of arguments which view territoriality, including that of modem society, as primarily a post‐Cartesian strategy of control or access. The phenomenon of the territoriality of modern societies and the this‐worldly, transcendental referents in the collective self‐consciousness which it presupposes also call into question the assumption of the putatively pervasive, contractarian individualism of modem society.