The philosophy of space and time is a branch of philosophy concerned with ideas about knowledge and understanding within space and time, ideas that have been central to philosophy from its inception. It was both an inspiration for and a central aspect of early analytic philosophy, and it focuses on a number of basic issues, including whether time and space exist independently of the mind, whether they exist independently of one another, what accounts for time's apparently unidirectional flow, whether times other than the present moment exist, and questions about the nature of identity, particularly the nature of identity over time.
Facts
Central QuestionSourced to the subject's own accountDo space and time exist independently of the objects and events within them, or are they only relations that hold among those objects and events? 1 Key DebateWhether time genuinely passes, with a real and changing division into past, present and future, the A-theory, or whether that appearance of passage is only how creatures like us experience an unchanging series of events related merely as earlier and later, the B-theory, a dispute distinct from the debate over whether space and time are substances in their own right. 2 Disputed
Key DebateSourced to the subject's own accountAbsolutism versus relationalism, first argued by Newton (through Samuel Clarke) against Leibniz: whether space and time are real entities in their own right or nothing more than orderings among the objects that occupy them. 1 Connections
Associated With
The Leibniz-Clarke correspondence's relational theory of space and time, against Newtonian absolutism, is the standing alternative position the field still debates.
The Transcendental Aesthetic of the Critique of Pure Reason, arguing space and time are a priori forms of intuition rather than things or relations in themselves, is the field's most cited single position.
Sources
1. Philosophy of Space and Time (Wikipedia)
WikipediaIntroduction
The philosophy of space and time is a branch of philosophy concerned with ideas about knowledge and understanding within space and time.
Absolutism and relationalism section
The great debate between defining notions of space and time as real objects themselves (absolute), or mere orderings upon actual objects (relational), began between physicists Isaac Newton (via his spokesman, Samuel Clarke) and Gottfried Leibniz in the papers of the Leibniz-Clarke correspondence.
View the Source 2. Time (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
Stanford University, Center for the Study of Language and Informationthe section contrasting A-theory and B-theory accounts of temporal passageQuote, the section contrasting A-theory and B-theory accounts of temporal passage
A-theorists and B-theorists appeal to different sources of evidence for their different views of passage. A-theorists typically emphasize how psychologically we seem to perceive a world of robust passage or "flow" of time.
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