Geometric possibility- an argument from dimension

European Journal for Philosophy of Science 4 (1):31-54 (2014)
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Abstract

One cannot expect an exact answer to the question “What are the possible structures of space?”, but rough answers to it impact central debates within philosophy of space and time. Recently Gordon Belot has suggested that a rough answer takes the class of metric spaces to represent the possible structures of space. This answer has intuitive appeal, but I argue, focusing on topological characterizations of dimension, examples of prima facie space-like mathematical spaces that have pathological dimension properties, and endorsing a principle of plenitude for possibility, that we get a different rough answer: either the class of metrizable spaces or the class of separable metrizable spaces are possible structures of space

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Carolyn Brighouse
Occidental College

References found in this work

The metaphysics within physics.Tim Maudlin - 2007 - New York: Oxford University Press.
Naturalism in mathematics.Penelope Maddy - 1997 - New York: Oxford University Press.
Philosophy of Physics: Space and Time.Tim Maudlin - 2012 - Princeton University Press.
The Metaphysics within Physics.[author unknown] - 2007 - Tijdschrift Voor Filosofie 69 (3):610-611.
Space, Time, and Spacetime.Lawrence Sklar - 1974 - University of California Press.

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