Spatial Entities

Ordinary reasoning about space—we argue—is first and foremost reasoning about things located in space. This suggests that any theory concerned with the construction of a general model of our spatial competence must be grounded on a general account of the sort of entities that may enter into the scope of the theory. Moreover, on the methodological side the emphasis on spatial entities (as opposed to purely geometrical items such as points or regions) calls for a re-examination of the conceptual categories required for this task. Building on material previously presented in [1995c], in this work we offer some examples of what this amounts to, of the difficulties involved, and of the main directions along which spatial theories should be developed so as to combine formal sophistication with some affinity with common sense