ABSTRACT

In this chapter, we reflect on the antinomies, contradictions and aporias that grant value its peculiar complexion and notorious complexity. Ranging over linguistic, spectral and ecological analogies, we focus in detail on the geometrical rendering of value – value considered under the aspect of space – provided by Marx in opposing the work of Bailey. This leads us from an ontology of value towards a spectrology or a hauntology of value, suggested by the oxymoronic notion of sensuous non-sensuousness, which purportedly forms the substance of value. This notion, which Marx borrowed from Hegel, prompts a fuller assessment of space (and time) in Hegel and Kant, as a further means of exploring the implications of juxtaposing value and space. We conclude with a final example of work in this vein, provided by Simmel, on the one hand to suggest the importance of thinking through value in spatial terms and on the other hand to signal the abiding metaphysical difficulties presented by conceptions of space and time per se.