The Dissemination, Debate, and Dialectics of Lefebvre’s Theory of the Production of Space in the Anglophone World

This article attempts to study Henri Lefebvre’s *The Production of Space* from a deeper perspective, focusing in particular on the dissemination, influence, and debate surrounding its core ideas and concepts in the Anglophone world. Overall, the most important concept in the book is undoubtedly the much-debated and variously interpreted “triple/spatial dialectic” (une dialectique de triplicite/three-dimensional dialectic). Centering on these issues, the article draws on primary classical texts and representative research findings of contemporary Western scholars to chart a path toward the horizon of a historical-materialist theory of space. At the same time, it critiques the tendency in Western academia to consciously or unconsciously misread Lefebvre’s later spatial thought as postmodernism or post-Marxism. It emphasizes that understanding Lefebvre’s spatial dialectics must return to the German dialectical context in which it was produced, and argues that the most important contribution of his theory of the production of space is not to promote a so-called postmodern spatial turn, but rather to propose a critical epistemology of social space and a dialectics of spatial contradiction.

本文试图从更深入的角度研究列斐伏尔的《空间的生产》一书，特别是其中的核心思想与概念在英语世界传播影响与争论的问题。总体而言，该书最重要的概念莫过于众说纷纭、莫衷一是的“三元/三维空间辩证法”（une dialectique de triplicite/three-dimensional dialectic）。文章围绕这些问题根据一手经典文本并参看当代西方学者的一些代表性研究成果，理出一条通往历史唯物主义空间化理论地平的道路，同时批判西方学界有意无意把后期列斐伏尔空间思想误读为后现代主义与后马克思主义的偏向，强调理解列斐伏尔的空间辩证法思想，必须回归到其产生的德国辩证法语境，并认为其空间生产理论最重要的贡献并不是推动所谓后现代式的空间理论转向，而是提出了社会空间批判认识论与空间矛盾辩证法。

I. Dissemination: A Philosophical Cosmic Text of Unique Style and Eccentric Thought, and Its Tortuous and Complex Reception History

一、传播：一部风格独特、思路谲异的哲学天书及其曲折而复杂的接受史

Exactly half a century ago (1974), the septuagenarian Henri Lefebvre (1901–1991) published the most influential work of his life, *The Production of Space*. To date, this book has become a classic spanning many specialized fields within the humanities, and a veritable classic in the history of Western Marxism, comparable to such monumental works as *History and Class Consciousness*, *Dialectic of Enlightenment*, *Prison Notebooks*, and *The Arcades Project*. The French edition has gone through four major versions (1974, 1981, 1986, 2000) and has been translated into Italian (1975), Japanese (2000), Spanish (2013/2020), Korean (2011/2014), Chinese (2021, 2022)[n], and especially English (1991), producing a broad and profound international academic impact. However, because the book was written in a “dictated” manner, combined with “a great deal of theoretical argumentation, many implicit references, a difficult organizational structure, and frequent digressions,” this has increased the difficulty of understanding the work. In particular, since the book is not a “traditional text,” its exposition of ideas does not unfold in the usual step-by-step, straightforward manner. Instead, “it is written in the form of a fugue. This is a polyphonic technique… The seven chapters of *The Production of Space* each repeat the others while offering a distinctly different interpretation. As if to emphasize the contrast, the fugue concludes with a ‘conclusion’ that is also a ‘beginning’ or ‘opening’.” His text is filled with polemics, sudden inspirations, seemingly groundless digressions, and abrupt, unexpected questions. In short, Lefebvre is Lefebvre precisely because he always follows his more acute sudden inspirations rather than adhering to rules or confining himself to a closed system. The difficulty in grasping and applying his theory is mainly attributable to “the fluidity, dynamism, and openness of his thought, which can be most aptly summarized by his most common way of answering questions: ‘Yes, but no’.”

整整半个世纪之前（1974），年逾七旬的列斐伏尔（Henri Lefebvre,1901—1991）出版了他一生最有影响的著作《空间的生产》。迄今为止，此书已经成为一部横跨人文科学诸多专业领域的名著，也是西方马克思主义史上名副其实的经典，可与《历史与阶级意识》《启蒙辩证法》《狱中札记》《拱廊街计划》等不杇宏论大作比肩而立。此书法文版先后有四个重要版本（1974、1981、1986、2000)，并被译成意大利语（1975）、日语（2000）、西班语（2013/2020），朝鲜语（2011/2014），汉语（2021、2022)2，特别是英语（1991)译本，并产生了广泛而深远的国际学术影响。但由于本书是以“口授的”方式写作而成的，再加上“大量理论论证，它有很多含蓄的指涉，难懂的组织结构和经常的离题”，这增加了此书理解的难度。特别是由于该书并非“传统文本”，其思想阐释不是按照通常循序渐进、平铺直叙的方式展开的。而是“采用赋格曲的形式来写作的。这是一种复调手法……《空间的生产》的七个章节，每一章都既是对其他章节的重复，又是截然不同的阐释。似乎是为了强调对照法，这支赋格曲以‘结论’收场，同时它又是‘开头’或‘开场’”。他的文本充满了论战，突发奇想，表面上毫无根据的离题，突然的、意外的问题。总之，列斐伏尔之为列斐伏尔，在于他总是出于更加灵敏的突发奇想而不循规蹈矩或拘泥于某个封闭体系。他的理论之所以难以把握与应用，主要归咎于“其思想的流动性、动态性与开放性，可以用他那种最寻常的回答问题方式来做最恰如其分的概括：‘是的，但又不是的’”。

It is precisely because of this bizarre, unrestrained, and encyclopedic style—reminiscent of Zhuangzi’s *Nanhua Jing*[n] in its breadth and ambition—that the dissemination and understanding of *The Production of Space* has undergone a complex and tortuous process: first, a lonely fate of being neither accepted nor understood among his peers in his own country, and later, a history of being partially accepted, applied, and understood in Anglophone countries. Since the publication of *The Production of Space*, there have been three waves or “constellations” of research and reading of Lefebvre in the Western Anglophone academic context: first, starting in the 1970s, the critique of urban political economy initiated by David Harvey, who introduced Lefebvre’s urban Marxism and spatial dialectics to Anglophone academia; second, starting in the 1980s, the postmodern geography research initiated by Edward W. Soja, who introduced Lefebvre’s thought into the fields of spatial culture and the linguistic turn in the social sciences and humanities; and third, since 2000, a more empirical and extensive research and application of Lefebvre’s thought, covering many fields, including social and political theory on globalization, urbanization, and state space, as well as theories of difference and rhythm, architecture, art, and even pedagogy, ecology, and feminist issues.

正是由于这种离奇古怪、恣肆汪洋、情类庄周《南华经》的文体风格及其海纳百川、雄心勃勃的百科全书性质，《空间的生产》一书的传播与理解经历了一个复杂而曲折的过程：先是在自己祖国同行内并不被接受与理解的孤独命运，后是在英语国家被片面地接受、运用与理解的历史。自从《空间的生产》发表以来，在西方英语学术语境中出现了三次研究阅读列斐伏尔的高潮或曰“星群”（constellations)：首先是自20世纪70年代起由哈维（D.Harvey）发起的城市政治经济学批判，他将列斐伏尔的城市马克思主义及其空间辩证法引入英语学界；其次是20世纪80年代以来由索亚（Edward W. Soja）所发起的后现代地理学研究，他将列斐伏尔的思想引入到空间文化以及社会科学与人文科学的语言学转向领域；而第三次是2000年以来对列斐伏尔思想的更加经验化与广泛化的研究与运用，遍及诸多领域，包括全球化、城市化、国家空间等方面的社会政治理论以及差异与节奏理论、建筑学、艺术，乃至于教育学、生态学、女性主义问题，等等。

II. The Dance of Spatial Dialectics: Lefebvre, Harvey, Soja, Jameson, and Others Leading and Dancing

二、空间辩证法的舞蹈：列斐伏尔、哈维、索亚、詹姆逊等的领舞与起舞

The most important concept in Lefebvre’s *The Production of Space* is undoubtedly the much-debated and variously interpreted “triple/spatial dialectic” (une dialectique de triplicite/three-dimensional dialectic). Lefebvre’s multiple expressions of the “triple spatial dialectic” played the role of leading the dance, while Harvey, Soja, Jameson, and others “danced gracefully” around this issue.

列斐伏尔的《空间的生产》最重要的概念莫过于众说纷纭、莫衷一是的“三元/三维空间辩证法”（une dialectique de triplicite/three-dimensional dialectic）。列斐伏尔对“三元空间辩证法”的多种表达起到了领舞的作用，而哈维、索亚、詹姆逊等则围绕这一问题“翩翩起舞”。

(1) Lefebvre’s Multiple Expressions of the “Triple Spatial Dialectic”

（一）列斐伏尔对“三元空间辩证法”的多种表达

The most original and most controversial issue in *The Production of Space* is the trialectics it proposes. Regarding the threefold division of space, he has several formulations: The first formulation borrows and transforms Hegel’s dialectical logic of the three judgment forms—universality, particularity, and individuality—to propose a triple spatial dialectic: mental space corresponding to universality, natural space corresponding to individuality, and social space corresponding to particularity, with the synthesis or core being the dialectic of social space. The second formulation, based on Hegel’s thesis-antithesis-synthesis triadic narrative model and also on Marx’s reproductive dialectic of social structure—the triadic representational structure of mode of production–economic structure–superstructure—proposes the most famous triple dialectic: “spatial practice or physical space, representations of space or mental space, and representational spaces or social space.” The third formulation is phenomenological or embodied: perceived space or space in the sense of sensory practice, conceived space or representations of space, and lived space or representational space.

《空间的生产》一书最具有原创性的、也最具有争议的问题，是本书所提出的三元辩证法（trialectics）。关于空间三分法，他有好多种说法：第一种说法是通过借用与改造黑格尔的普遍性、特殊性与个别性三种概念判断形式的辩证逻辑，而提出的三元空间辩证法：与普遍性相对应的精神空间,与个别性相对应的自然空间,以及与特殊性相对应的是社会空间,其合题或者核心是社会空间的辩证法；第二种说法依据黑格尔的正题-反题-合题三段论叙述模式,也依据马克思关于社会结构的再生产性辩证法即生产方式-经济结构-上层建筑三元组合的再现性结构，而提出的最为著名的三元辩证法：“空间的实践或物理空间,空间的表象或精神空间以及再现性/表征性空间即社会的空间”；第三种三分法是现象学的或者身体化的：知觉的空间或感性实践意义上的空间,构想的空间或空间的表象，以及生命体验式的空间或表征性空间。

There are other formulations of the threefold division of space, such as the linguistic one: first, metonymic space as spatial practice, analogous to the syntagmatic or syntactic structure in linguistic behavior, manifested in social ritual activities in everyday life; second, metaphorical space as representations of space, analogous to the paradigmatic or inflectional dimension of language, i.e., paradigm shifts; the planning and design of space at the levels of cities, regions, and nations belongs to representations of space; third, “synecdochic-rhetorical space” as representational space, which is not space itself but some other symbol, a process of signification in language, thereby linked to certain material symbols, such as scenic spots. In short, “We can attribute the syntagmatic structure (links, concatenations, connections) to spatial practice. The paradigmatic dimension and its binary correspond to representations of space. The symbolic dimension and its monumental character and positions of superiority symbolize the entire cosmos, the world, society, or the state, and refer to representational space.” Lefebvre also stated that the triple spatial dialectic corresponds, respectively, to Marx’s theory of material production space, Hegel’s theory of mental production as representations of space, and Nietzsche’s cultural-critical theory of representational space.

空间三分法还有其他说法,如语言学意义上的,即：一是作为空间实践的转喻式空间，意味着语言行为中的横向组合（syntagmatic）或句法结构，表现为日常生活实践中的社交礼仪活动；二是作为空间表象的隐喻式空间，空间表象类似于语言学中的语言的纵向结合（paradigm）或词型变化，也就是范式变化；城市地域国家等层次的空间的规划设计属于空间的表象；三是作为表征性空间的“提喻-修辞性空间”，这不是空间本身而是某种其他象征，这是语言的赋义过程，从而与某些物质性的象征物联系在一起，如风景名胜。总之，“我们可以把横向组合结构（链接、串联、联系）归诸空间实践。纵向结合维度及其二进制对应于空间的表象。而象征的维度及其纪念碑性质与优胜性位置，象征着整个宇宙、世界、社会，或者国家，而指涉到表征性空间。”列斐伏尔还说过，三元空间辩证法分别是马克思的物质生产空间论、黑格尔的精神生产的空间表象论以及尼采的文化批判式的表征性空间论。

In this regard, a scholar in the Anglophone world has commented as follows: The core contribution of Lefebvre’s spatial theory is to highlight the foundational status of space in social-theoretical research and to propose a dialectical theoretical framework for the production of space. The significance of his “triadic” concept of space can be grasped by linking spatial practice and the organization of social spatiality with an analysis of the operation of power and the ideological formations that create the representational forms of space. Lefebvre’s complex theory of the production of space unfolds as a three-dimensional composite, providing the necessary elements for elaborating a genuine knowledge of spatial issues. His contribution to the social theory of modernity is to provide a structural framework for the social analysis of spatial problems, demonstrating the interaction of multiple complex elements and the importance of this interaction. That is, genuine knowledge of space can be obtained through consideration of the dynamic triadic necessary elements; the questions that require study, interpretation, and verification are: how space is produced, how space is represented in analytical discourse, and the meaning of everyday life and how it influences representations of space while being subject to them.

对此，有英语世界学者这样评价说：列斐伏尔空间理论的核心贡献就是突出空间在社会理论研究中的基础性地位，并提出了一个空间生产的辩证法理论框架。他的“三位一体”的空间概念意义可以通过把空间实践和社会空间性组织与对创造了空间的表征性形态的权力与意义形态的运作分析联系在一起。列斐伏尔关于空间生产的复杂性理论展现为一种三维立体组合，对于阐述一种关于空间问题的真正的知识提供了必要的元素。他对现代性社会理论贡献就是为空间问题的社会分析提供了一个结构性框架，展示了复杂的多重元素的相互作用以及这种相互作用的重要性。这就是，空间的真正知识能够通过对动态的三位一体的必需要素的考量而获得，需要研究解释与证实的问题是：空间是如何生产的、空间是如何在分析的话语中得到表征的，以及日常生活的意义及其如何影响空间的表征同时受制于空间表征的。

(II) David Harvey’s Triadic Spatial Dialectics: A Structural-Functionalist Interpretation

（二）大卫·哈维的三元空间辩证法：一种结构功能主义理解

In the Anglophone world, the scholar who creatively interprets and applies Lefebvre’s thought on spatial dialectics is first and foremost David Harvey. As early as works such as *Social Justice and the City* and *Explanation in Geography*, Harvey first openly acknowledged that he understood Marx’s dialectical method primarily through the earliest Anglophone work on Marx’s internal-relations dialectic (actually structural functionalism)—Bertell Ollman’s *Alienation: Marx’s Conception of Man in Capitalist Society*. Subsequently, Harvey proposed a spatial tripartite division, or three theories of space, as a basic viewpoint and method. These are absolute space, relative space, and relational space. Absolute space (Newton) is the thing-in-itself, existing independently of matter; it possesses a structure that can be used to classify phenomena, assign them a place, or endow them with individuality. Relative space (Einstein) is understood as the relationship between objects; it exists only because objects exist and are related to one another. Relational space (similar to Leibniz’s “monad”), that is, internal relations, is a variant of relative space; this space is contained within objects, that is, an object exists only insofar as it contains within itself and presents its relations with other objects.

在英语世界，创造性解释并运用列斐伏尔空间辩证法思想的学者，首推大卫·哈维。早在《社会正义与城市》以及《地理学中的解释》等著作中，哈维先是公开承认他主要是通过英语世界最早论述马克思内在关系辩证法（实际上是结构功能主义）的著作——奥尔曼的《马克思的异化理论》一书来理解马克思的辩证方法的。接着，哈维提出了作为基本观点方法的空间三分法，或者三种空间理论。这就是绝对空间、相对空间与关系性空间。绝对空间（牛顿）即物自体,有独立于物质之外的存在,它拥有一种结构,可用来为现象分类归位或赋予个性。相对空间（爱因斯坦）被理解为物体之间的关系,其存在只是因为物体存在且彼此相关。关系性空间（类似于莱布尼兹的“单子”），也就是内在关系，是相对性空间的一种变种,这种空间包含在物体之中,亦即一个物体只有在它自身之中包含且呈现了与其他物体的关系时,这个物体才存在。

In *The Condition of Postmodernity*, Harvey argues that the basic idea of Lefebvre’s *The Production of Space* can be comprehensively grasped through the dialectical relations of three dimensions of space. It is not equivalent to the Hegelian-Marxist three stages or levels of negation of the negation, but rather three dimensions that are inseparable and simultaneous: first, material spatial practices, that is, the natural and material flows, transfers, and interactions that occur in and traverse space, so as to ensure the needs of production and social reproduction. Second, representations of space, including all signs and meanings, codes and knowledge. Third, representational spaces, that is, mental fictions, so as to provide spatial practices with certain imaginaries that have new meanings or possibilities.

在《后现代的状况》一书中，哈维认为，列斐伏尔的《空间的生产》一书的基本思想可以概括为对空间的三个向度的辩证关系来全面把握。它不等于是黑格尔—马克思式的否定之否定的三个阶段或层次，而是彼此不可分离的同时并存的三个维度：第一，物质性的空间实践，即那些发生在空间中的并穿越空间的自然的与物质的流动、转输与相互作用等方式，以保证生产与社会再生产的需要。第二，空间的表象，包括所有的符号与意义，代码与知识。第三，表征性空间，即精神的虚构物，以便为空间性实践提供某些具有崭新意义或可能性的想象。

Harvey believes that Lefebvre characterizes the features of the three dimensions of space as experience, perception, and imagination. The problem, however, is that Lefebvre only emphasizes the dialectical, rather than causal-deterministic, relations among experience, perception, and imagination. Yet Harvey still emphasizes the “in the last instance” (Engels) determining significance of spatial practice within Lefebvre’s spatial tripartite division, rather than parallel dialectical relations of mutual presupposition.

哈维认为，列斐伏尔将空间的三个维度的特征分别概括为体验、感知与想象。但问题在于，列斐伏尔只是强调了体验、感知与想象之间的辩证的而不是因果决定论的关系，然而哈维还是强调了空间实践在列斐伏尔的空间三分法中的“归根到底”（恩格斯）的决定意义，而不是互为前提的平行的辩证关系。

We can roughly make the following hypothesis and inference: Harvey’s absolute space (Marx’s “use-value”) can correspond to Lefebvre’s spatial practice; Harvey’s relative-relational space (Marx’s “exchange-value”) can correspond to Lefebvre’s representations of space; and Harvey’s favored relational space-time (Marx’s “value-form”) can complement Lefebvre’s representational spaces.

我们大致上可以做出这样的假设与推定，哈维的绝对空间（马克思的“使用价值”）可与列斐伏尔的空间实践相对应，哈维的相对—相关性空间（马克思的“交换价值”）可与列斐伏尔的空间表象相对应，而哈维所情有独钟的关系性时空（马克思的“价值形式”）则可与列斐伏尔表征性空间相得益彰了。

(III) Edward Soja’s Thirdspace Theory: An Ontologizing Interpretation of the Triadic Dialectics

（三）爱德华·索亚的第三空间论：对三元辩证法的本体论化理解

In the Anglophone world, the second figure to offer an original interpretation of Lefebvre’s spatial dialectics and exert unprecedented influence is Edward W. Soja, a representative of the Los Angeles School. Soja believes that Lefebvre’s spatial dialectics derives primarily not from the tripartite division of spatial practice, representations of space, and representational spaces, but rather begins with the tripartite division of the natural, the mental, and the social: Lefebvre merges objective physical space and subjective mental space into social space. The concept of Thirdspace precisely possesses the multiple meanings that Lefebvre always intended to give to social space. It is both a space distinct from physical space and mental space, or from Firstspace and Secondspace, and a mixture that transcends all spaces. Lefebvre always held that every way of thinking about space, every human spatial field (including the physical, the mental, and the social), must be simultaneously regarded as real-and-imagined, concrete-and-abstract, material-and-metaphorical, but this is only an anticipated goal. The fundamental task is to resolve the binary oppositions of space in the history of Western philosophy; first and foremost, the sociality of space, or “thirding,” must be highlighted. Othering or “thirding” is far more than the Hegelian or Marxist dialectical synthesis, which is also based on a complete thesis, antithesis, and synthesis and a temporal sequence. The third introduces a crucial alternative; it speaks and criticizes through otherness, that is, it does not arise from a simple addition of the prior two terms, but from a dismantling and provisional reconstruction of their assumed completeness, thereby producing an open alternative. “Thirding” reorganizes dialectics through intrusive disruption; what “thirding” generates is best called a cumulative triadic dialectics, which is thoroughly open to further otherness and to the continuous expansion of spatial knowledge. In other words, insisting on “thirding” is to thoroughly deconstruct the temporal structure of historical stage theory, to be a continuously expanding chain of disruption. It opens up closed, complete structures; this “thirdness” is not a holy trinity, but is to continue construction, to expand the production of knowledge beyond the known.

在英语世界，对列斐伏尔空间辩证法具有原创性阐释并产生空前影响的第二位人物是洛杉矶学派代表人物爱德华·索亚（Edward W. Soja，亦译苏加）。他认为，列斐伏尔的空间辩证法主要不是来自于空间实践、空间表象与表征空间的三分法，而是始于自然、精神与社会三分法：列斐伏尔把客观的物理空间与主观的精神空间融合为社会空间。而第三空间概念正具有列斐伏尔始终要赋予社会空间的多重含义。它既是区别于物理空间与精神空间的，或者说第一空间与第二空间的空间，又是超越所有空间的混合物。列斐伏尔始终认为，思考空间的每种方式，人类每个空间性领域（包括物理的、精神的与社会的），都要同时被视为真实的-想象的、具体—抽象的、实在的—隐喻的，但这只是一种预期目标。根本任务是要解决西方哲学史上空间理论的二元对立，首先必须突出强调空间的社会性或者“第三化”。他者化或“第三化”远不止是黑格尔或马克思的那种辩证综合，后者也是以完整的正题、反题与合题及时间序列为基础的。第三者引入了关键的不同选择项，它通过他性来言说与批评，也就是说，它不是源于先前二元项的简单叠加，而是源于对它们所假定的完整性的拆解与临时重构，从而产生一种开放的选择项。“第三化”通过侵入性的破坏对辩证法进行重组，“第三化”所生成的那种东西，最好叫做累积性的三元辩证法，它对另外的他者性彻底开放，对空间知识的持续扩展彻底开放。换言之，坚持“第三化”就是彻底解构了历史阶段论时间性结构，就是不断地扩展的破坏链。它打开了封闭的完整的结构，这个“第三性”并不是神圣的三位一体，而是要继续建设，要在已知之外不断扩大知识的生产。

Lefebvre first critiques the fetishism of transparent space, i.e., spiritual space, which prevailed in modern rationalism and idealism. The spatial illusion of realism, on the other hand, emphasizes the concreteness of the world from a naturalist-mechanical materialist and empiricist perspective, holding that objective things are more real than thought. This is an illusion of opacity. By breaking through this binary opposition of spatial concepts, Lefebvre opens the path to thirdspace. *The Production of Space* revolves around this “thirding.” From it, Lefebvre forms a triple dialectic of spatiality (une dialectique de triplicité). This ontological concept of the triple dialectic is Soja’s most creative contribution to understanding Lefebvre’s thought, and also the root cause of frequent confusion and criticism. The so-called ontological triple dialectic is the coexistence of spatiality, sociality, and historicity. That is, being (ontology) possesses a triadic or triple nature: historicity, sociality, and spatiality as a trinity. On this basis, Soja proposes the ontological dimension of spatiality, or the spatial dimension. Soja argues that before Lefebvre, ontology had only the two dimensions of sociality and historicity. Although Heidegger and others were aware of the ontological significance or existential meaning of space, “when the triple nature of being is reduced to the dual relation of historicity and sociality, spatiality is usually marginalized and pushed into the background, as a reflecting background, or container, or stage, environment, or an external constraint on human activity and social activity. We can read, in the works of authors from Kant to Hegel to Heidegger and Sartre, as well as in social critical theorists such as Simmel, Kracauer and Benjamin, Giddens and Harvey, about silent efforts to place space in a more central position.” [4]4 The original text contains a quotation from Edward W. Soja, but the source is not specified here. The translation follows the Chinese text provided.

列斐伏尔首先批判了近代在理性主义与唯心主义那里盛行的透明的空间即精神空间的拜物教。而实在论的空间幻象则从一种自然主义—机械唯物主义与经验主义角度强调世界的具体性，认为客观事物比思维更真实。这是一种不透明的幻象。通过突破这种二元对峙的空间概念，列斐伏尔开辟了第三空间的道路。《空间的生产》就是围绕着这个“第三化”展开的。列斐伏尔从中形成了一个空间性的三元辩证法（triple dialectic/une dialectique de triplicite），这个具有本体论意义的三元辩证法概念是索亚在理解列斐伏尔思想方面所做出的最富创造性的贡献，也是常常让人犯糊涂与诟病的祸根。所谓本体论的三元辩证法，即空间性、社会性与历史性的三元并存。这就是存在（本体）具有了三元性、三重性，即历史性、社会性与空间性三位一体。在此基础上，索亚提出了本体论的空间性维度或空间性向度。索亚认为，在列斐伏尔之前本体论只有社会性与历史性这两个维度。虽然海德格尔等人意识到空间的本体论意义或存在论意义。“当存在的三重性被简化为历史性与社会性这二重性关联时，空间性通常便被边缘化排挤到背景之中，作为一种反映的背景或容器或舞台，环境，或对人的活动与社会活动的一种外在制约。我们可以在从康德到黑格尔到海德格尔和萨特等人的著作中，也可以在诸如齐美尔、克拉考与本雅明、吉登斯与哈维等的社会批判理论家那里，读到有关将空间放在一个更加中心位置上的无声的努力。”

(IV) Jameson: Cognitive Mapping or the Spatial Epistemological Dialectics of Totality

（四）詹姆逊：认知图绘或总体性的空间认识论辩证法

In the Anglophone world, the third scholar to creatively interpret Lefebvre’s spatial dialectics and thereby exert equally broad influence is Fredric Jameson. Although he has never systematically studied the text of *The Production of Space*, he has profoundly appropriated Lefebvre’s concept of representational space and proposed the famous theory of spatial cognitive mapping.

在英语世界，对列斐伏尔空间辩证法做出创造性阐释从而引起同样广泛影响的第三位学者是弗里德里克·詹姆逊。他虽然从来没有专门系统研究过《空间的生产》的文本，但深刻地挪用了列斐伏尔的表征性空间概念，提出了著名的空间认知图绘理论。

While also valuing Lefebvre’s concept of thirdspace, Jameson differs from Soja’s postmodern pluralist ontological understanding by approaching the spatial question from the perspective of social critical epistemology. If Lefebvre merely highlighted the importance of understanding modern society from a spatial perspective, arguing that capitalism has shifted from the production of things to the production of space, and that space has become the core domain of capitalist power control and socialist everyday life liberation, then Jameson argues that postmodern society is a vast sign-space, a hyperspace, a society of signs or a society of the hyperreal and hyperspace that has lost depth, i.e., become flattened. Jameson treats space both as an important object of domination by capitalist globalization and as a dialectical historical discursive mode for critiquing the postmodern society’s lack of historical consciousness. As capitalism successfully enters a stage of globalization with greater institutional flexibility and technological dynamism, the capitalist mode of production, as an abstract temporal mechanism of domination (i.e., speed), extends time globally. Thus, the time of “simultaneity” (extreme speed) that transcends all place-space limits paradoxically transforms itself into “static” space, manifesting as the domination of time by homogeneous space. Therefore, “everything that seeks to be grasped through temporality must first be expressed through a spatial matrix.” All history becomes “spatiality.” Today, the Marxist dialectic of history must adopt the form of spatial dialectics. For this, Jameson proposes a concept that is both ontological and epistemological: cognitive mapping, or the concept of embodied spatial practice as representation. This theory of Jameson’s is a successful transcoding of the temporalized narrative logic or the logic of the historical subject’s total consciousness in Lukács’s *History and Class Consciousness*; it successfully converts Lukács’s critical logic of the history of modernist capitalism or highly reified monopoly capitalism into the spatial dialectics of the postmodern, globalized capitalist era. In short, the historical dialectics centered on class consciousness is replaced by the spatial dialectical epistemology of cognitive mapping.

虽然同样重视列斐伏尔的第三空间概念，但与索亚的后现代式多元主义的本体论理解不同，詹姆逊是从社会批判认识论角度来理解空间问题。如果说列斐伏尔仅仅突出了从空间角度来理解现代社会的重要性，认为资本主义已经从物的生产转向空间的生产，空间成为资本主义权力控制与社会主义日常生活解放的核心领域，那么詹姆逊则认为后现代社会是一个巨大的符号空间、超级空间、失去了深度的即平面化的符号社会或超现实的超空间的社会。詹姆逊既把空间视为资本主义全球化的重要统治对象，又将其理解为一种批判后现代社会无历史意识的一种辩证的历史话语方式。随着资本主义成功跨入更富有制度弹性与技术动力的全球化发展阶段，资本主义生产方式作为一种抽象的时间统治机制（即速度），把时间扩展到了全球，于是超越一切地点—空间限制的“同时性”发生的时间（极限速度）把自身“悖反性”地变成了“静止的”空间，表现为同质性空间对时间的统治。因此，“根据时间性试图寻求的一切，必然会首先经过一种空间的基质才得以表达。”所有的历史都变成了“空间性”。今天，马克思主义的历史辩证法必须采用空间的辩证法形式，他为此提出了一个既是本体论又是认识论的概念，即认知图绘，或者身体化空间实践再现论概念。而詹姆逊这种理论是对卢卡奇的《历史与阶级意识》的时间化叙述逻辑或历史主体总体意识的逻辑一次成功的转码，是将卢卡奇对现代主义资本主义或高度物化的垄断资本主义社会历史的批判逻辑成功转换成为后现代的全球化的资本主义时代的空间辩证法。简言之，以阶级意识为主体的历史辩证法被认知图绘这个空间辩证法认识论所取代。

(V) Overinterpretation of and Disputes over the Third Term of the Triple Spatial Dialectic

（五）对三元空间辩证法第三项的过度诠释及其争执

In the first Anglophone monograph on Lefebvre’s thought, *Lefebvre, Love and Struggle: Spatial Dialectics*, Professor Rob Shields of the University of Alberta points out that from the very beginning, Lefebvre spatially interpreted Hegel’s temporal “sublation” of contradiction and conflict, incorporating it into a triadic synthesis of the “both-and” model. This “both-and” model is precisely “both” (both affirmation and negation) – “and” (the third/other). This spatial concept of dialectics is often oversimplified as a presentist transcendence. In fact, this other is not a concrete, independent, static third or another in the usual sense, but always an active, unstable process of becoming and transformation. Becoming is not a rupture of self-affirmation, but a continuous, infinite transformation of the other and otherness. Lefebvre’s intention is to respatialize dialectics, insisting that the negation of the negation is not a point placed on a linear movement, but a complete exterior, a transcendence, or an other, constituted on a basis entirely different from its initial binary domain or point, i.e., affirmation and negation. In short, this shifts from the triad of affirmation-negation-negation of the negation to affirmation-negation-otherness. It resembles the infinite alterity/other ethics and political aesthetics of Levinas, Homi Bhabha, and Bakhtin, rather than the dialectics of totality that maintains identity with itself.

在英语世界首部研究列斐伏尔思想的专著《列斐伏尔，爱与斗争——空间辩证法》一书中，加拿大阿尔伯塔大学教授谢尔兹指出，列斐伏尔从一开始便将黑格尔的时段性意义上的对矛盾与冲突的“扬弃”环节加以空间化解释，而纳入到“既是—又是”这样一种三段论综合之中了。这个“既—又”模式确切地说是“既”（既肯定又否定）—“又”（第三者/他者）。这种空间意义上的辩证法概念通常被过分简单化为一种现时性的超越。实际上，这个他者并不是我们平时所说一个具体的独立的静止的第三者或另一个，而总是活跃不定的、生成与转换的过程。生成不是自我肯定的这样一种断裂，而是一种无限转化的连续不断的别的与他者的。列斐伏尔的打算是要把辩证法重新空间化，坚持认为否定之否定不是作为放置于线性运动过程的一个点，而是一个完全的外在者，一个超越者或者说一个他者，是在与其最初的二元性领域或点，即肯定与否定完全不同的基础上构成的。实际上，这就是从肯定—否定—否定之否定三段论转向了肯定—否定—其他性。它类似于列维纳斯、霍米—巴巴、巴赫金所说的无限的异者/他者伦理与政治美学，而不是与自身保持同一性的那种总体性的辩证法。

Another important Anglophone Lefebvre scholar, Professor Stuart Elden of the University of Warwick, points out that one cannot rashly conclude, as Soja and Shields do, that *The Production of Space* transforms the Marxist dialectic of history into a spatial dialectic, turning dialectics from binary to triadic. “The fact that Lefebvre uses Nietzsche’s overcoming rather than Marx’s sublation to understand and rethink the problem of space does not mean that dialectics is spatialized, but rather that a non-teleological dialectics is used to elucidate the problem of space.” Most importantly, the emphasis on the importance of Lefebvre’s works on space must be combined with his rethinking of temporality and historicity; space and rhythm together constitute the consistent theme of his works.

英语世界另一位列斐伏尔重要研究者英国华为大学教授斯图亚特·埃尔登则指出，不能草率地像索亚与谢尔兹等人那样认为，《空间的生产》一书使马克思主义的历史辩证法变成了空间辩证法，使辩证法从二元变成三重性。“列斐伏尔运用尼采的超克而不是马克思的扬弃来理解与重思空间问题这个事实，并不意味着辩证法的被空间化，而毋宁说是用一种非目的论的辩证法来阐明空间问题。”最为重要的是，对列斐伏尔论空间著作的重要性的强调必须和他对时间性与历史性问题的重思结合在一起，空间与节奏共同构成了其著作的一贯主题。

III. Returning to German Dialectics: A Three-Dimensional Epistemology, Not a Triadic Ontology

三、回归德国辩证法：是三维认识论，而不是三元本体论

By comparison, I am more inclined to agree with the grasp of Lefebvre’s spatial dialectics by the German-language scholar Christian Schmid, a professor of architecture at ETH Zurich. This German-language architectural scholar, who grew up in the 1980 “May Storm” movement in Zurich, Switzerland, published in 2005 the world’s first German-language study of Lefebvre’s theory of the production of space, also his doctoral dissertation, *City, Space, and Society: Lefebvre and the Theory of the Production of Space*. He subsequently became a central figure in the German-language academic research group on Lefebvre’s spatial dialectics and in the “Zurich Applied Urban Planning Research Center,” as well as a founder of the “International Network for Urban Research and Action” (INURA). He has explicitly challenged the postmodern geography or Los Angeles School represented by Edward Soja in the Anglophone world. In 2022, he published this book in English. In this new work, he points out that the primary question of Lefebvre’s spatial philosophy is to understand “what is meant by the production of space,” or why the problem of space is, in the final analysis, a problem of “the production of space,” not of “space itself or spatial objects,” but of “the process of spatial production and the result of production.” Schmid argues that Lefebvre, after distinguishing Hegel’s dialectical logic of thesis-antithesis-synthesis from Marx’s dialectical logic of affirmation-negation-negation of the negation, proposed a three-dimensional dialectics (dreidimensionalen Dialektik). This is a dialectics of the production of space (die Dialektik der Produktion des Raumes), or the three dimensions of the production of space (die Dreidimensionalitat der Produktion des Raumes, namely: spatial practice, representations of space, and representational spaces; the natural, the mental, and the social; the perceived space of spatial practice, the conceived space of representations of space, and the lived space of representational spaces; and so on). This dialectics is an open totality based on the production of space, a spatial dialectics that incorporates time into its process. Its theoretical subject is not space itself, nor even the order of objects and things in space. Space can only be understood as an active meaning, a network of relations, as a continuous process of production and reproduction. Therefore, we can only understand the analytical subject and object as the process of spatial production actively occurring in time. In short, the three moments of spatial production can only be understood on an equal footing. Space is simultaneously perceptible, conceivable, and experienceable. None of these dimensions can serve as an absolute starting point, just as no one of the three themes has priority or the right of absolution. This spatialization, by its very nature, will never be fixed or finalized, because it is constantly being reproduced and is therefore always inseparable from time.

相比较而言，我更认同德语学者、苏黎世联邦理工学院（ETH）建筑学系教授克里斯蒂安·施米德（Christian Schmid）对列斐伏尔空间辩证法思想的把握。这位成长在瑞士苏黎世1980年“五月风暴”运动中的德语建筑学家，2005年出版了德国世界首部研究列斐伏尔空间生产理论的著作，也是他的博士论文《城市、空间与社会：列斐伏尔与空间的生产理论》，后遂成为德语学术界列斐伏尔空间辩证法研究团体及“苏黎世都市规划应用研究中心”的中坚人物，也是“国际都市研究与行动网络”的创始者（INURA）。他明确地向英语世界以索亚为代表的后现代地理学或洛杉矶学派发起挑战。2022年他将此书用英语出版。在这本新著中，他指出列斐伏尔的空间哲学首要问题就是要理解“什么叫空间的生产”，或者“为什么空间问题说到底是一个‘空间的生产’问题”，而不是“空间本身、空间对象”，而是“空间生产过程、生产的结果”的问题。施米德认为，列斐伏尔是在通过把黑格尔的辩证法的正—反—合逻辑与马克思的辩证法的肯定—否定—否定之否定逻辑加以区别之后，而提出了一种三维辩证法（dreidimensionalen Dialektik）。这是一种空间的生产的辩证法（die Dialektik der Produktion des Raumes），或空间生产的三个维度（die Dreidimensionalitat der Produktion des Raumes，即：空间实践、空间表象与表征性空间；自然的、精神的与社会的空间；作为空间实践的可知觉空间，作为空间的表象的可构想空间，作为表征性空间的可体验空间；等等）。这个辩证法，是以空间的生产为基础的开放的总体性，是一种将时间纳入到过程中的空间辩证法。其理论主体并不是空间本身，甚至不是空间中的物与人造物的秩序。空间只能被理解为一种能动的意义、一种关系的网络，理解为不断的继续的生产与再生产。因此，我们只能把分析的主题与对象理解为空间生产是能动地发生于时间中的生产的过程。总之，空间生产的三个环节只能一视同仁地加以理解。空间同时既是可感知的、可构思的与可体验的。其中的每个维度均不能作为绝对出发点，正像三个主题没有一个具有优先权与开释权一样。这个空间化就其本质而言是不会定型或终结的，因为它是被不断地再生产的，因而是始终是与时间不可分离的。

The profundity of Christian Schmid lies in his return to the context of classical German dialectics to restore the true essence of Lefebvre’s dialectical materialism—understanding the open nature of dialectics in contradiction and its infinite transformation, rather than in a closed logic of sublation-based unity. For Lefebvre, what is important is not the “trialectic” highlighted by Soja; the core issue remains dialectics (dialectic). The ancient Greek prefix *dia-* does not mean “two” or “dual,” but “through”; the dialectics understood by Hegel is still based on the movement of contradiction (duality). The way to resolve the defects of Hegel’s logical philosophy—the compulsion toward identity and closed ahistoricity—is to play with Nietzsche’s concept of the eternal recurrence of the same. The result is a synchronic, i.e., mutually presupposing and relational, picture of dialectics that is always in contradiction and its transformation, both beginning and end. From this perspective, Schmid’s intention to understand multi-dimensional (including spatial) dialectics in the process of the transformation of contradictions is profound. In Schmid’s view, David Harvey uses Bertell Ollman’s internal relations dialectic to understand spatial dialectics, which is a naturalistic, functionalist, and even structuralist dialectics. The foundation of Harvey’s dialectics is influenced by the structuralism of Jean Piaget’s genetic epistemology, embodies the epistemological and historicist spirit of Marx’s dialectics, and recognizes that dialectics must be understood in the process of the transformation of contradictions. Nevertheless, this dialectics remains a manifestation of the self-perfection of structural functions. The fundamental problem with Soja’s spatialized dialectics is that he understands Lefebvre’s general problematic of the production of space as a turn from historical dialectics to spatial dialectics. Lefebvre’s original intention, however, was to use Marx’s dialectics of contradiction to dialecticize the problem of space, that is, to understand the problem of space on the basis of the dialectics of contradiction, even, one might say, in the sense of the diachronic and synchronic resolution and manifestation of historical contradictions, and in the sense of the dialectics of the abstract and the concrete. In short, it is not to “spatialize” dialectics, but to give a “dialectical” understanding of the problem of space; not to give an urban-spatial interpretation of Marxism, but to give a Marxist-dialectical interpretation of the urban-spatial problem. Lefebvre did not commit the error of spatial fetishism of which he is accused by Harvey, Manuel Castells, and others. Soja’s problem is that he transforms Lefebvre’s three-dimensional spatial dialectics—an epistemological perspective—into a triadic spatial dialectics, intuitively and unreflectively understanding the problem of space as one of three ontological dimensions—nature, society, and space—and, in particular, exaggerating the transcendent, synthetic significance of the third dimension among spatial practice, representations of space, and representational spaces. This remains a latent Hegelian logic of self-sublation in three stages (thesis-antithesis-synthesis) and a teleological mode of thinking, marked by logical compulsion.

克里斯蒂安·施米德的深刻性就在于，在回到德国古典辩证法的语境中，还原了列斐伏尔的辩证唯物主义的真谛——在矛盾中及其无限转化中，而不是在封闭的扬弃式统一的逻辑中，理解辩证法的开放的本性。对于列斐伏尔而言，重要的并不是索亚所突出的三元辩证性（trialectic），核心问题仍然是辩证法（dialectic）。古希腊语的前缀dia-并不是“二元”的意思，而是指“通过”，黑格尔所理解的辩证法是仍然基于矛盾（二重性）的运动。解决黑格尔逻辑哲学同一性强制与封闭的非历史性的弊端的方式，就是用尼采的相同者的永恒轮回概念游戏。结果就是一种永远处于矛盾及其转换中的、既是开端又是终结的、共时性的即互为前提性—关系性的辩证法画面。照此来看，施米德的在矛盾的转化过程中理解多维的（包括空间维度的）辩证法的用心是深刻的。在施米德看来，哈维运用了奥尔曼的内在关系辩证论理解空间辩证法，这是一种自然主义的功能主义的，甚至是结构主义的辩证法，哈维的辩证法根基是受到了皮亚杰的发生认识论的结构主义影响，是体现了马克思的辩证法的认识论与历史主义的精神影响，是看到了必须在矛盾转化过程中理解辩证法，但这种辩证法仍然是结构功能的自我完善的表现。索亚的空间化辩证法的根本问题是把列斐伏尔的空间生产的总问题理解为从历史辩证法向空间辩证法的转向。而列斐伏尔的本意是用马克思的矛盾辩证法将空间问题理解辩证法化，也就是在矛盾辩证法基础上，甚至可以说是在历史矛盾的历时性与共时性解决与表现的意义上，在抽象与具体的辩证法的意义上理解空间问题。简而言之，并不是将辩证法“空间化”，而是对空间问题进行“辩证法化”理解，不是对马克思主义进行都市空间问题化解释，而是对都市空间问题进行马克思主义辩证法化解释。列斐伏尔并不是像哈维与卡斯特等人所指责的那样犯了空间拜物教的错误。索亚的问题，是将列斐伏尔的三维的空间辩证法这个认识论视野转换成为三元的空间辩证法，将空间问题直观地、非反思地理解为自然、社会与空间三个本体论之一元，特别是夸大了列斐伏尔所说的空间实践、空间表象与表象性空间中的第三维的超越性综合性的意义，仍然是隐性的黑格尔的正反合三阶段自我扬弃式的逻辑强制与目的论思维。

Schmid further points out that, besides the confusion caused by Harvey and Soja each grasping one extreme in their interpretations of Lefebvre, Rob Shields’s understanding of Lefebvre’s spatial dialectics essentially integrates the three dimensions of space that Lefebvre speaks of into a fourth dimension. This is a comprehensive, unified spatial dimension that contains both spatiality and temporality, yet it still follows the bad old habit of Hegelian synthetic dialectics. Stuart Elden’s understanding of Lefebvre’s spatial dialectics, while breaking through the defects of the postmodern spatial turn of Soja and others—arguing that there is no spatial turn or spatial dialectics, but rather that the study of the problem of space breaks through the compulsion of traditional historical teleology, and that Lefebvre uses Nietzsche’s concept of *Überwindung* (overcoming) to replace Hegel’s teleological narrative of self-sublation and its logic of thought—nevertheless, Schmid believes that Elden’s problem is that he does not realize that “overcoming” is still a case of using Hegelian synthesis to terminate contradiction, just in a different guise. Because overcoming means transcending contradiction, which is precisely to terminate contradiction. In reality, the dialectics of Marx and Lefebvre has no endpoint; it is an open, differential totality that is forever in the process of the transformation and coexistence of contradictions. Building on Schmid’s pertinent views, I would like to further point out that, although works including Derek Gregory’s *Geographical Imaginations* and Fredric Jameson’s theory of cognitive mapping have indeed shaken off the shackles and confusions of postmodern spatial-ontological mystical intuition, and attempt to understand the problem of spatial dialectics as an imagination and narrative form for penetrating and grasping the synchronic complexity of the contradictions of global capitalism—that is, cognitive mapping, as a dialectical epistemological form, reproduces the reality of the interweaving and synchronic existence of various contradictions and uneven realities in the development of capitalist globalization, overcoming the abstract and simplistic defects of traditional diachronic historical dialectics, which is powerless to grasp complex contradictory realities—they still suffer from the one-sided problem of emphasizing the dimension of representational spaces while neglecting spatial practice.

施米德进一步指出，除了哈维与索亚各执一端对列斐伏尔的解释导致了许多混乱之外，谢尔兹对列斐伏尔的空间辩证法理解其实质是将列斐伏尔所说的空间的三维度最终整合成为第四个维度，这是一种既包含着空间性也包含着时间性的综合统一的空间化的维度，仍然因袭了黑格尔的合题式辩证法的积弊。埃尔登对列斐伏尔的空间辩证法的理解虽然突破了索亚等人的后现代的空间转向的缺陷，认为并没有一个空间转向或空间辩证法，而只是通过空间问题研究突破了传统的历史目的论强制，列斐伏尔是通过尼采的超克概念取代了黑格尔的目的论的自我扬弃叙述与思维逻辑。但施米德认为，埃尔登的问题是他并没有意识到“超克”仍然是换汤不换药地用黑格尔的合题来终结矛盾的表现。因为超克就意味着超越矛盾，这也就是终结矛盾。实际上，马克思与列斐伏尔的辩证法是没有终点的，而是永远处于矛盾转化与矛盾并存过程的开放的差异的总体性。在施米德的中肯看法基础上，我想进一步指出的是，包括戈利高里的《地理学想象》在内以及詹姆逊的空间图绘理论，固然是摆脱了后现代式的空间本体论神秘直觉束缚与迷惑，而试图将空间辩证法问题理解为透视与把握全球资本主义社会矛盾共时化性复杂现实的一种想象与叙述形式，也就是空间图绘以一种辩证认识论形式再现了资本主义全球化发展中各种矛盾与不平衡现实交织与共时存在的现实，克服了传统的历时性历史辩证法无力把握复杂矛盾现实的抽象性简单化弊端，但仍然存在着不重视空间实践而强调表征性空间维度的片面性问题。

Schmid’s understanding of Lefebvre’s spatial dialectics is a concrete dialectics of epistemological contradiction. In this regard, his research is broad and internally coherent. Yet I believe that the specter of latent pluralism and eclecticism still haunts it. In reality, Lefebvre’s dialectics is an open totality based on the reconciliation and fusion of a neo-humanist logic of alienation and Marxist dialectics of contradiction, one caught in an infinite transformation of contradictions and the repetitive differentiation of alienation.

施米德对列斐伏尔的空间辩证法的理解是认识论的矛盾论的具体辩证法。就此而言，他的研究是开阔且有内在合理性的。但我认为这里仍有隐性多元主义、折中主义幽灵在作怪，实际上列斐伏尔的辩证法是基于新人本主义异化逻辑与马克思主义矛盾辩证法调和融合中的、处于无限的矛盾转化与异化的重复差异的开放的总体性。

IV. Is It a Ternary Dialectics, or a Dialectics of Spatial Contradiction?

四、是三元辩证法，还是空间矛盾辩证法？

Lefebvre’s spatial dialectics is, in the final analysis, the spatial embodiment of Marx’s dialectics of social contradictions. In other words, the ternary spatial dialectics is ultimately a dialectics of spatial contradiction or spatialized contradiction, the synchronic/concentrated expression of temporal contradictions at different stages of different historical eras of society. That is to say, spatial dialectics is the synchronic and concentrated expression of the historical/diachronic dialectics as understood by original Marxism. In effect, Lefebvre unconsciously used a pluralistic ternary spatial dialectics to transcend the traditional Marxist dialectics of contradiction, or rather, he sought to replace the homogeneous abstract space of capitalist domination with a dialectics of differential space. Although in this process he could not fully resist the temptation of pluralism and relativism characteristic of postmodernism, at his deepest level the most profound Marxist thought he wished to express was a dialectics of spatial contradiction. In terms of textual structure, the center of gravity of *The Production of Space* is not the first chapter’s introduction, which people usually emphasize, but rather Chapter Five, “Contradictory Spaces,” and Chapter Six, “From Spatial Contradictions to Differential Space.” The reason many scholars identify the core idea of *The Production of Space* as the ternary spatial dialectics is that they have only read the concept prominently raised in the opening section of the book, without carefully reading the thought on the dialectics of spatial contradiction presented in the latter half. On this point, the previously mentioned Gregory is a striking exception. Besides emphasizing the essential meaning of Lefebvre’s spatial dialectics as a historical dialectics, he, like Jameson, also discovered the important significance of Lefebvre’s dialectics of spatial contradiction.

列斐伏尔的空间辩证法说到底是马克思的社会矛盾辩证法的空间体现，换言之，三元空间辩证法归根结底是一种空间矛盾或者空间性矛盾的辩证法，是社会不同历史时代不同阶段的时间性矛盾的共时性/集中化表现。也就是说，空间辩证法是原来的马克思主义所理解的历史性/历时性的辩证法的共时性和集中化的表现。列斐伏尔实际上是不自觉地用多元主义的三元的空间辩证法来超越传统马克思主义的矛盾辩证法，或者说想用一种差异的空间的辩证法，来取代或颠覆资本主义同质化的抽象空间统治。他虽然在这个过程中没有能挡住后现代主义那样的多元主义、相对主义诱惑，但从内心深处来说，他想表达的最深刻的马克思主义思想，是一种空间性矛盾辩证法。从文本结构上说，《空间的生产》一书的重心并不是人们通常重视的第一章导言，而是第五章“矛盾的空间”与第六章“从空间矛盾到差异空间”。许多学者之所以认定《空间的生产》一书的核心思想是三元空间辩证法，就是因为他们只看了本书开头的部分所突出提出的这个概念，而没有认真细致地去阅读本书靠后半部分所提出的空间的矛盾辩证法思想。在这一问题上，前面提及的戈利高里是一个惊人的例外，他除了强调列斐伏尔的空间辩证法的历史辩证法本质意义之外，也与詹姆逊一样都发现了列斐伏尔的空间矛盾辩证法思想的重要意义。

What, then, are the spatial contradictions that concern Lefebvre?

列斐伏尔关心的空间的矛盾，到底是什么？

First, the contradiction between quality and quantity, or between use-value and exchange-value.

第一，质与量或使用价值与交换价值的矛盾。

Historically, what distinguishes capitalist society from earlier societies is that it destroyed previous historical spaces and produced for itself an abstract space. Its origin lies in the globalization of the commodity economy, or the world market. Thus, the contradiction between the quality and quantity of space originates from the ancient duality of the commodity’s use-value and exchange-value. The eternal contradiction between the exchange-value and use-value of the commodity is today “spatialized” into a dialectical contradiction between “global networks and the concrete locations of production and consumption.”

历史地看，资本主义社会不同于从前社会，就在于其摧毁了以往历史空间而为自己生产出了抽象空间。其滥觞是商品经济的世界化或世界市场。由此可见，空间之质与量的矛盾源于商品的使用价值与交换价值这个古老的二重性矛盾。在商品的交换价值与使用价值之间的永恒矛盾，在今天就“空间化地”转化为“全球网络与生产和消费的具体位置”之间的辩证矛盾。

Second, the contradiction between the production of space and the consumption of space.

第二，空间的生产与消费之间的矛盾。

The spatial production of contemporary capitalism divides space in two: “one region is a region developed for and through the production of (consumer goods); the other region is a region developed for and through the consumption of space.” The space of the production of consumer goods is a market space, strictly quantified. For the consumption of space (tourism, shopping, leisure), customers demand a genuine space. What they need is a use-value that is high-quality, sufficient, and satisfactory.

当代资本主义的空间生产把空间一分为二：“一种区域是以（消费品的）生产为目的并依靠（消费品的）生产而发展的地区；另一种区域是以空间的消费为目的并依靠空间的消费而发展的地区。”消费品生产的空间是一个市场空间，该空间是被严格量化的。而对空间的消费（旅游、购物、休闲），顾客们要求的乃是一个货真价实的空间。他们所需要的是保质保量、称心如意的使用价值。

Third, the contradiction between the global (the totality) and the local, that is, between homogenized and fragmented space.

第三，全球性（整体性）与地方性，即同质化的与碎片化的空间之间的矛盾。

For Lefebvre, this is the primary spatial contradiction. Just as Marx and Engels stated that the fundamental contradiction of capitalist society is between the private ownership of the relations of production and the socialized development of productive forces, the main contradiction of space manifests in two aspects: on the one hand, the pulverization of space caused by private property; on the other hand, the unprecedented capacity of science and technology (information) to handle space on a vast scale; on the one hand, the capacity to imagine and handle space on a global (or worldwide) scale; on the other hand, the fragmentation of space, that is, the self-fragmentation of space, caused by various production procedures or processes.

于列斐伏尔而言，这是首要的空间矛盾。正像马克思恩格斯所说，资本主义社会的基本矛盾是生产关系的私有制与生产力的社会化发展，空间的主要矛盾表现在以下两个方面：一方面是私人财产造成的空间粉碎化，另一方面是前所未有的巨大尺度上处理空间的科学与技术（资讯）能力；一方面是全球（或全世界）规模的想象和处理空间的能力，另一方面是各式各样的生产程序或过程所导致的空间的碎片化，即空间的自我碎片化。

Fourth, the contradiction between the center and the periphery.

第四，中心与边缘的矛盾。

Abstract space is a concentrated, radial space. The world market is defined territorially from the perspective of flows and networks, and politically from the perspective of centers and peripheries. Through the integration and disintegration of national-territorial spaces, a world-wide, strictly hierarchical space is taking shape.

抽象空间是一个集中的、放射形的空间。世界市场就是以地域（从流动和网络的角度）和政治（从中心和边缘的角度）来界定的。通过整合与瓦解国家—地域的空间，一个世界性的严格等级制空间正趋于成型。

Fifth, the contradiction between domination and appropriation.

第五，支配与取用的矛盾。

On the one hand, space becomes a dominated private possession; on the other hand, space always possesses the characteristic of common “use” (appropriation) that cannot be privately owned. On the one hand, there is dominated (and dominating) privatized space, a space transformed and regulated by technology and practice; on the other hand, the opposing camp holds that there is always public space or public green space in the world that “cannot be privately owned,” and they attempt to “appropriate” rather than “possess” the forces of space.

一方面，空间变成被支配的私有物，而另一方面，空间永远具有不可私人占有的共同“使（取）用性”特征；一方面是被支配的（以及支配性的）私有化空间，也即一种被技术、实践所改造和调节过的空间，而另一方面，相反的阵营则认为世界上有永远“不可私人占有”的公共空间或公共绿地，他们试图去“取用”而非“占有”空间的力量。

Yet, among these five pairs of contradictions, which is the most important? What is the fundamental path to resolving spatial contradictions? What is the future prospect for humanity? Lefebvre seems somewhat hesitant. On the one hand, he optimistically and confidently states that the key to solving the problem lies in the transition from the capitalist production of space to the socialist production of space, that is, from the private appropriation, commodified production, exchange, and consumption of space to the public appropriation or sharing of space. On the other hand, he pessimistically warns that if this transition is not achieved, there will be an unacceptable, hopeless future. The greatest obstacle hindering the transition to a new mode of spatial production is this: on the one hand, capitalist spatial production possesses enormous resources and strategies on a global scale; on the other hand, the forces currently resisting it are only small-scale, dispersed interest groups and individuals. Nevertheless, as a Marxist dialectician, he ultimately asserts with victorious confidence that capitalism, due to its insurmountable spatial contradictions, will inevitably give way to a new society: “Spatial contradictions do not eliminate the contradictions arising from historical time; rather, they leave history behind and simultaneously raise those old contradictions to a higher level on a worldwide scale. When this totality of contradictions takes on a new meaning, pointing toward ‘something else’—another mode of production”—some of these contradictions are weakened, while others are intensified.” But what exactly is this new mode of production? Lefebvre does not specify, only mysteriously naming it “differential space.” Thus, he returns from the dialectics of the duality of spatial contradiction to the ternary spatial dialectics. (Notes omitted.)

然而，这五对矛盾中哪一对最重要？解决空间矛盾的根本途径是什么？人类未来前景究竟如何？列斐伏尔似乎有些犹豫不决。一方面，他乐观地、信心十足地说，解决问题之要津是实现从资本主义的空间生产向社会主义的空间生产过渡，即从对空间的私有化占有、商品化生产交换与消费到对空间的公有化取用或共享；但另一方面，他又悲观地警告说，如果未能实现这种过渡，就会有让人无法接受、让人绝望的未来。而阻碍向新的空间生产方式过渡的最大症结是：一方面资本主义空间生产拥有着全世界规模的巨大的资源与战略，而另一方面目前反抗这种力量的只是规模狭小且分散的利益群体与个体。不过，他作为马克思主义辩证法家最终还是以必胜的信心断言，资本主义由于其无法克服的空间矛盾而必然让位给新社会：“空间的矛盾，并没有消除从历史时间产生出来的矛盾，而是把历史留在身后，并把那些旧矛盾在全世界的范围内同时提升到一个更高的水平。当这个矛盾的整体呈现出一种新的意义，指向‘一些其他东西’——另外一种生产方式”——的时候。其中的一些矛盾就被削弱了，另外一些则加剧了。”但这个新的生产方式究竟是什么？列斐伏尔并不明示，只是神秘兮兮地名之曰“差异性空间’”。这样，他又从空间矛盾二重性辩证法回到了三元空间辩证法上来了。（注释略）

Online Editor: Zhang Jian

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