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Buckets of Water and Waves of Space: Why Spacetime is Probably A Substance

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 April 2022

Tim Maudlin
Tim Maudlin*
Affiliation:
Department of Philosophy, Rutgers University
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Abstract

This paper sketches a taxonomy of forms of substantivalism and relationism concerning space and time, and of the traditional arguments for these positions. Several natural sorts of relationism are able to account for Newton's bucket experiment. Conversely, appropriately constructed substantivalism can survive Leibniz's critique, a fact which has been obscured by the conflation of two of Leibniz's arguments. The form of relationism appropriate to the Special Theory of Relativity is also able to evade the problems raised by Field. I survey the effect of the General Theory of Relativity and of plenism on these considerations.

Type
Research Article
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 60 , Issue 2 , June 1993 , pp. 183 - 203
Copyright
Copyright © Philosophy of Science Association 1993

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Footnotes

†

I am indebted to Paul Teller and John Norton for their comments.

‡

Send reprint requests to the author, Department of Philosophy, Davidson Hall, Douglass Campus, P. O. Box 270, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ 08903-0270, USA.

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