In this book, Lawrence Sklar demonstrates the interdependence of science and philosophy by examining a number of crucial problems on the nature of space and ...

Space, Time and Causality An Essay in Natural Philosophy.

This paper considers the implications for the relational-substantival debate of observations of parity nonconservation in weak interactions, a much neglected topic. It is argued that 'geometric proofs' of absolute space, first proposed by Kant (1768), fail, but that parity violating laws allow 'mechanical proofs', like Newton's laws. Parity violating laws are explained and arguments analogous to those of Newton's Scholium are constructed to show that they require absolute spacetime structure--namely, an orientation--as Newtonian mechanics requires affine structure. Finally, it is considered (...) how standard relationist responses to Newton's argument might respond to the new challenge of parity nonconservation. (shrink)

This paper outlines a new interpretation of an argument of Kant's for the existence of absolute space. The Kant argument, found in a 1768 essay on topology, argues for the existence of Newtonian-Euclidean absolute space on the basis of the existence of incongruous counterparts (such as a left and a right hand, or any asymmetrical object and its mirror-image). The clear, intrinsic difference between a left hand and a right hand, Kant claimed, cannot be understood on a relational view of (...) space - for in terms of the spatial relations of their parts, there is no difference to be found. Kant's argument has been interpreted by, among others, Graham Nerlich (in 1973, Hands, Knees and Absolute Space, The Journal of Philosophy). I briefly discuss Nerlich, and then offer a different reconstruction of the argument, one that appears to be closer to Kant's text. The reconstruction, however, essentially involves ascription of primitive identity to parts of space. Comparing the Kantian absolutist account of incongruous counterparts using primitive identity to the correct relationist account, I conclude that the absolutist account pays a heavy metaphysical price, without buying any genuine explanatory advantage over the relationist. I go on to examine recent suggestions that parity-non-conservation phenomena in quantum physics allow a stronger version of Kant's challenge to relationism. On closer examination, it turns out that here too the absolutist or substantivalist must be appealing to space parts with primitive identity in order to claim an advantage over relationists; and here too, I argue the substantivalist story really has no advantage over the correct relationist account. (shrink)

Hud Hudson offers a fascinating examination of philosophical reasons to believe in hyperspace. He explores non-theistic reasons in the first chapter and theistic ones towards the end; in the intervening sections he inquires into a variety of puzzles in the metaphysics of material objects that are either generated by the hypothesis of hyperspace or else informed by it, with discussions of receptacles, boundaries, contact, occupation, and superluminal motion. Anyone engaged with contemporary metaphysics, and many philosophers of religion, will find much (...) to stimulate them here. (shrink)

This is a revised and updated edition of Graham Nerlich's classic book The Shape of Space. It develops a metaphysical account of space which treats it as a real and concrete entity. In particular, it shows that the shape of space plays a key explanatory role in space and spacetime theories. Arguing that geometrical explanation is very like causal explanation, Professor Nerlich prepares the ground for philosophical argument, and, using a number of novel examples, investigates how different spaces would affect (...) perception differently. This leads naturally to conventionalism as a non-realist metaphysics of space, an account which Professor Nerlich criticises, rejecting its Kantian and positivistic roots along with Reichenbach's famous claim that even the topology of space is conventional. He concludes that there is, in fact, no problem of underdetermination for this aspect of spacetime theories, and offers an extensive discussion of the relativity of motion. (shrink)

Science Without Numbers caused a stir in 1980, with its bold nominalist approach to the philosophy of mathematics and science. It has been unavailable for twenty years and is now reissued in a revised edition with a substantial new preface presenting the author's current views and responses to the issues raised in subsequent debate.

In the first part of this paper a relational account of incongruent counterparts is defended against an argument due to Kant. I then consider a more recent attack on such an account, due to John Earman, which alleges that the relationalist cannot account for the lawlike left--right asymmetry manifested in parity-violating phenomena. I review Hoefer's, Huggett's and Saunders' responses to Earman's argument and argue that, while a relationalist account of parity-violating laws is possible, it comes at the cost of non-locality.

Since antiquity, natural philosophers have struggled to comprehend the nature of three tightly interconnected concepts: space, time, and motion. A proper understanding of motion, in particular, has been seen to be crucial for deciding questions about the natures of space and time, and their interconnections. Since the time of Newton and Leibniz, philosophers’ struggles to comprehend these concepts have often appeared to take the form of a dispute between absolute conceptions of space, time and motion, and relational conceptions. This article (...) guides the reader through some of the history of these philosophical struggles. Rather than taking sides in the (alleged) ongoing debates, or reproducing the standard dialectic recounted in most introductory texts, we have chosen to scrutinize carefully the history of the thinking of the canonical participants in these debates — principally Descartes, Newton, Leibniz, Mach and Einstein. Readers interested in following up either the historical questions or current debates about the natures of space, time and motion will find ample links and references scattered through the discussion and in the Other Internet Resources section below. (shrink)