Talk:Philosophy of space and time

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Contents 1 western bias 2 summary? 3 VfD 4 Article name 5 Time and Chaos theory 6 Anti-realism 6.1 Not to quibble... 6.2 There's scarcely a mention of what the realist position is. 7 endurantism and perdurantism in space, rather than time... 8 26 May 2007 edits

[edit] western bias

It is unbelievable that there is zero mention of Buddhist/Daoist/Hindu (and other) Eastern conceptions of space in this article. I am certainly not the one to write them, but without them, this is staunchly Western traditionalist article.

Interestingly enough, the debate in the East is quite the same. Perhaps there could be some mention of what positions Buddhists, Hinduists, and Taoists hold, but I'm not positive that is appropriate. Postmodern Beatnik 23:19, 26 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] summary?

This article seems very disjointed. What is the CURRENT status of philosophy of time? What is the current approach among physists? After reading this article as it currently stands, one does not come away with much of a sense of having been informed about time.

What do mean, "what is the current approach among physicists?" This article is about philosophy. While it may be true that physicists tend to unwittingly import philosophy into their views, only a few of these issues are directly touched on. Moreover, is it proper to add that much text over what view is popular right now? What if that changes overnight? Let's stick to the facts. Postmodern Beatnik 23:19, 26 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] VfD

I was going to list this on VfD, since it seems kind of like a personal project rather than an encyclopedia article, but I stopped myself. I still have a few questions about it, though.

1. How is this different from metaphysics?
2. How can you write about the philosophy of space and time without mentioning Kant?
3. The article is currently a near-orphan (Nothing else is really referring to it outside of a circle of articles that all seem to be primarily your contributions) - is there a reason for this?
4. Is this really a distinct branch of philosophy, or is most of this better served in articles on the philosophy of science, on metaphysics, and on the individual debates being mentioend?
5. Really. Why no Kant?

Thanks. Snowspinner 19:54, 18 May 2004 (UTC)

I'm not the author of the article, but I thought I could weigh in on at least your question (1).

There are in my estimation two reasons why the philosophy of space and time is different from metaphysics.

1. To compare this field of study with the field of study known as 'metaphysics' would be to commit some sort of category error. Metaphysics is traditionally distinguished from epistemology, ethics, etc. It doesn't make a lot of sense to ask, say, how the philosophy of mind is different from metaphysics, since the philosophy of mind is to be more fairly contrasted with other subject matters, like the philosophy of language, perhaps. Of course, that isn't to say that many of the issues of the philosophy of mind aren't metaphysical: but many of them are, for example, epistemological as well. The same goes for the philosophy of space and time. As the intro says, many of the issues raised therein are ontological (and therefore metaphysical), but others are clearly in large part epistemological (the experience of time, for instance). A more interesting question might be how this subject is different from the philosophy of physics, but I think the answer here is that the former is simply a subset of the latter.
2. Assuming that I'm wrong and no category error is taking place in your (1), it's still clear that the subject matter of metaphysics at large and the philosophy of space and time are distinct. I'm not certain, for instance, that the philosophy of S&T has anything to say about personal identity.

I agree that the near-orphan issue might be a problem of sorts, but this is not a bad thing. I assume that the author has a significant interest in the subject matter and so decided to contribute it to the community. Now that the information is there, it should be integrated into the rest of the wikiliterature--but that there was previously relatively little demand for this article is no reason that it shouldn't be written. Kachooney 21:28 edt, 18 May 2004

This does seem to me like a personal project rather than an encyclopedia article. However, it does seem to be good work from what I can tell, despite some problems (including the odd lack of Kant, definitely.) However, I don't think there's any such subfield as "philosophy of space and time" even though this is certainly a philosophical issue. it seems to me that "Philosophy and space and time" would be a much better title, so I'm moving the page there. — Adam Conover † 02:28, May 19, 2004 (UTC)

At the risk of moving it even more, perhaps "Space and time in philosophy" would better still? Snowspinner 02:42, 19 May 2004 (UTC)

I agree. Sorry, I should have waited for more discussion. I think you'd agree that this should be listed under Peer Review at WP:WPP as well. — Adam Conover † 04:05, May 19, 2004 (UTC)

No crime in being bold. I'll go ahead and list it at peer review later tonight if you haven't already done it. Right now, I need to close Safari and actually finish this damn paper. Snowspinner 04:11, 19 May 2004 (UTC)

• Howdy, thought I'd interject a couple of things (I wrote this page)

1. I started this page originally because there was an edit link from philosophy of physics, and since it is my area of specialization I took it upon myself to add this rather lengthy entry. I did link to it from some other philosophy pages, but I didn't know that would be an issue.

2. Philosophy of space and time involves metaphysics, but it also involves epistemology and philosophy of science. Some question whether it still deserves to be called a discipline in its own right, since many feel the issues have dissolved into more general issues in philosophy of language, for example, but it was a true sub-discipline for at least the period between the 1920's till the late 80's.

3. Why no Kant? Because Kant only seems to be discussed in space and time literature as an absolutist, with his argument of incongruous counterparts, but as many of us may know, this argument was only one half of his Antinomy on the subject of absolutism/relationalism. Certainly some content concerning Kant could be added here.

4. I'd rather we didn't change the name of the page to "philosophy and space and time". I have studied a lot of philosophy which exists in the proper category "philosophy of space and time" and everything I wrote in this page comes from those studies. So, given that the term of art "philosophy of space and time" is that which is generally used I propose that I should change the name back, unless there is some other argument for why this should be changed. For those who are in doubt that this is an established field, I would first refer them to the title of Reichenbach's book in the References section. And, for example, David Albert, chair of the philosophy of physics program at Columbia University refers to "philosophy of space and time" as one of his areas of specialization in his website: David Albert

I think that space and time in philosophy would be a better title, in that it would encompass more related things - including antecedents like Kant. Snowspinner 04:59, 19 May 2004 (UTC)

I guess I'm not sure what the motivation is, since philosophy of space and time does contain some information on Kant, as pointed to in my comment above, that I just didn't add. There are, however, two reasons for not changing the name:

1. I wrote the entry about the philosophy of space and time, which is a specific area within analytic philosophy, and is a proper subset of philosophy of physics, where this page was originally linked from, and so this entry is only catered to that.

2. space and time have played central roles in philosophy from the very beginning, so my entry here would just be one of literally a dozen or so other entries, e.g. aristotelian cosmology, Plato's Timaeus, Kant's Transcendental Idealism which would probably make more sense in an Aristotle, Plato and Kant entry, respectively.

I feel as though an entry on Philosophy of space and time should be an overview of the formation of a discipline, and of major topics within the discipline - i.e. like metaphysics or any other article on a field of study. This article is much more a discussion and summary of thought itself in development (As opposed to a field), and so is better suited to Space and time in philosophy. And yes, much of the information would hopefully be found in articles somewhere on Plato, Aristotle, and Kant as well - redundancy is not innately bad, however, if the information is being presented in a new context. Snowspinner 14:37, 19 May 2004 (UTC)

Well, I don't know what to say, this entry is an an overview of a discipline, called the philosophy of space and time. I'm sorry you haven't heard of the field before, but it exists and is just as real as the philosophy of mind, language, etc. This plea for generality seems to me misguided, like arguing that we should involve Plato's tripartite soul in the philosophy of mind page. The "philosophy of" locution is one peculiar and novel to analytic philosophy and what I have written here is an overview of the field of the philosophy of space and time as it is so understood within contemporary analytic philosophy. If you'd like to follow up on this, you can take a look at Sklar's book from the references, which is a thorough summary of the field and looks a good deal like what I've written here. So anyway, I'm not sure how this works on Wikipedia, perhaps I'll bring it up in the philosophy forum, but, not to make an appeal to authority here, I am a bit of an expert in this field and unless you can offer more than a gut feeling about why this title should be different, I would like to change it back.

My point is that the article is too specific for a general article on a field - look at analytic philosophy or something. It's a great article . I just think that Philosophy of space and time should be an article summarizing what the major concerns of the field are (Not even major conclusions, but major questions) and noting some major theorists. And that this article should be reworked into a more expansive article on the concepts of space and time in philosophy, which is also a really useful article to have. Snowspinner 17:16, 19 May 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Article name

To clarify, here's what I think should happen.

Philosophy and space and time should go away. Philosophy of space and time should be a short article giving an overview of the major issues within this field - not summarizing any thinkers, just laying out issues and noting who major figures are. A good model would be Continental philosophy or Metaphysics. Space and time in philosophy should contain much of the content of this article, as well as new content that fully expands the role of these concepts in philosophy.

To clarify my position

If there really is such a problem with the title, maybe something like Analytic philosophy of space and time or Contemporary philosophy of space and time would be better.

While maybe this article looks like I've gone into too much depth, I guess that's the complaint, rest assured I haven't, and I don't see how I could explain, for example, absolutism v. relationalism without at least one example.

In any case, I don't want to quibble over terminology here, but if this article is unacceptable, then it strikes me that there is no room for actual statements about analytic philosophy on wikipedia, and that is fine if that's how it is wanted. But it would be inaccurate to describe the article I have written as Space and time in philosophy as this articles would just be one chapter of at least a dozen. I think it would be great to start such a page, but I am not qualified to write an entry on, e.g., neo-Platonist cosmology.

In any case, to reiterate, philosophy of space and time is an area of philosophy, I work in that area of philosophy, and what I have written is a summary of major topics in that area of philosophy. It would be inaccurate to change the name to what it has currently been changed to, or to the second change recommended above. If the community thinks it would be misleading to the casual reader then I would again recommend adding "analytic" or "contemporary" to the beginning.Spacetimeguy

Spacetimeguy -- I am not entirely satisfied by your explanation that "philosophy of space and time" is an actual sub-field of philosophy. If you could cite an entry from a philosophical reference work (here, not necessarily in the arictle) that would satisfy me. Apart from that, you have done a great deal to address my concerns about this article, and if you can find such a citation I will support moving this article back to Philosophy of space and time. (I hope you are not put off Wikipedia by all this -- as you will see for yourself, a lot of people attempt to pass off their own obsessions or theories as devastatingly topics for articles, so those of us who work quality control can be a bit reactionary at times.) — Adam Conover † 18:38, May 19, 2004 (UTC)

I did a quick google search and most of the hits were either to variants of the philosophy of physics site here, or to course syllabi for classes titled "Philosophy of Space and Time". I did find [this link] which points to the papers that were presented in the philosophy of space and time at their Pitt's philosophy of science symposium, which I hope would be evidence that such a specialty is recognized. Spacetimeguy

I agree that this article isn't the complete "Space and time in philosophy" article. Then again, I can't think of a single article in Wikipedia that's complete, so that's not a bad thing. It's a start, and a really helpful start. Other people will add the stuff you're not qualified to write on. It's OK to not be able to write a whole article. Long as there's a lot of people who can all write parts of it, we get a whole article one way or another. :) Snowspinner 18:41, 19 May 2004 (UTC)

I'm agreeing with Spacetimeguy here. Philosophy of space and time is a subfield of philosophy, albiet a relatively new one - I've read several books on the subject myself, and one of the professors at my school, Michael Philips, has recently published a paper on it, or rather a specific problem within the field. Neither Space and Time in Philosophy nor Philosophy and Space and Time really refers to the subject as it is today at all, but would suggest a historical overview of different philosophers' approaches to space and time. Also the article as it stands now does exactly what an article on the philosophy of space and time should do: it gives an overview of various approaches, some proposed solutions to problems, and even has a list of references. I think it probably should reference Kant, but that's not a criticism at all but an invitation to some other editor to add a new section. -Seth Mahoney 19:41, 19 May 2004 (UTC)

I'd like to clarify once again that I do support an article called Philosophy of space and time, however I do not think that all of the content currently in this article is best suited for it - I'm proposing splitting the article into two - not eliminating one, moving one, or anything else like that. Snowspinner 19:44, 19 May 2004 (UTC)

In light of Spacetimeguy's citation of sources, I no longer have any objection to this article being moved back to "philosophy of space and time". I also don't object to Snowspinner's suggestion, but I am not entirely sure how it would work. Snowspinner, perhaps you could create a mockup showing which text you think belongs on which page? — Adam Conover † 22:36, May 19, 2004 (UTC)

This article either needs to be renamed to reflect its analytic pov, or a section on Heidegger is needed. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 201.207.97.7 (talk) 01:06, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Time and Chaos theory

I don't see any reference to Prigogine's "Arrow of Time" in this article, which I understand to be pretty significant. I think of the sections here, it would be most appropriate under statistical mechanics. The reversibility - irreversibility problem is easily solved: When we're talking statistics, we're talking about the expectation, and there we have irreversibility. In information theory, we have destruction and production of information (in both adiabatic and chaotic systems, but this has been elaborated on much more in the latter), and thus irreversibility - the precedent states cannot be predicted, not merely by the observer, but by the observed system itself, and therefore cannot be "gone back into". If two paths converge, when you're on the path that was converged to, you can't look back and tell which path you came from (the only information/"memory" you have is the "state", which is what path you are on and where you are in that path.) If paths diverge, you cannot predict which path you go to. It's simply a matter of the ratio of precedents to antecendents. That ratio determines the information production/destruction rate. (i'm oversimplifying a little - one really has transition probabilities and it's a weighted problem, but the concept is the same.) In any case, Prigogine's "Arrow of Time", currently absent from this article. Kevin Baas^talk 06:01, 2005 Apr 11 (UTC)

Also missing is the relation of Gibbs free energy production (via the 2nd law of thermodynamics) to information entropy, consistent w/the POV that time is information production/destruction, and Jaynes' information theory formalism of statistical mechanics. (Jaynes, E. T., 1963, `Information Theory and Statistical Mechanics,' (905Kb) in Statistical Physics, K. Ford (ed.), Benjamin, New York, p. 181 (pdf)) Kevin Baas^talk 06:15, 2005 Apr 11 (UTC)

[edit] Anti-realism

Minimalist anti-realist position?

• physical objects are not necessarily mind-dependent, though whatever more they are (beyond our conception) is unavailable. "Physical object" nouns can have a referent.
• Not only are time & space not the same kind of substances as physical objects, thay are not substances at all. Spatiotemporal nouns (time space length) do not refer to anything
  • this is entirely compatible with relativity theory, indeed makes acceptance of relativity a bit less "counter-intuitive" --JimWae 2005 July 4 22:36 (UTC)

These questions are indeed the topic of much of the article. Banno July 5, 2005 03:56 (UTC)

The warp in space-time produced by an object is as much a part of the substance (what ever that is) of that object as is its mass. If "Spatiotemporal nouns do not refer to anything", then what is it that is distorted by the presence of a mass? If one supposes that the presence of a mass changes the geometry of spacetime, then one presupposes the existence of a spacetime in order for it to have a geometry. Banno 04:53, July 10, 2005 (UTC)

But this is just a re-working of standard arguments between realists and idealists; the point of the anti-realism section is to distinguish between these arguments and those of Mach, Newton and Liebniz - they are quite distinct. Banno 05:25, July 10, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Not to quibble...

but I'm a little concerned about the accuracy of the new "idealist anti-realist" section.

While certainly Leibniz was a realist about monads, that did make him an idealist about the external world (i.e. he thought that space and time were "confused perceptions") which puts him in line with a Berkeley, not a Newton, who could be construed as a "realist" about minds also, while being an anti-realist about the external world.

Similarly, any positivist position, as in the article: a Mach, Einstein or Reichenbach, will better be seen as an anti-realist, as space and time are not substances on their view but relations, or even just useful fictions. Spacetimeguy

It appears to me to confuse the issue to talk about "substance", as both respondents here do. Substance is an Aristotelian notion; in Relativistic physics, the notion simply does not occur, having been replaced by mass, spacetime and energy. Furthermore to describe Mach and Einstein as “anti-realist” strikes me as, to say the least, rather revisionist. Banno

Substance is a philosophical notion. That starts with Aristotle and remains pretty popular up through and including the 20th century. Leibniz was an Idealist, at least as far as that category has any meaning he was. Mach and Einstein were positivists. They explicitly said they were, and Einstein once said that Reichenbach's "Philosophy of Space and Time" was the philosophical interpretation that he thought was the correct one for General Relativity. Positivism is a form of anti-realism. So, I'm not seeing where the revisionism is coming in. Spacetimeguy

Positivism is a form of anti-realism??? Then you have work to do in the article positivism. Banno 00:31, July 11, 2005 (UTC)

Hmm...that's too bad...Maybe I should just forget about it. Anyway...all of this jargon is notoriously inconsistent from speaker to speaker. Positivism, as far as I am aware, is thought to be a form of anti-realism since the posits of surface grammar do not, on their view, exist. So, for example, comparing positivism against scientific realism, a scientific realist believes in the existence of entities called "electrons" where positivists believe that electrons are merely "useful fictions" that can help to explain the regularities of phenomenal appearances and to predict future phenomenal appearances (in brief "realism", for the positivists is one of those pesky "metaphysical" positions) This is certainly the position held by Ayer, Reichenbach, Schlick, and depending how your read him Carnap. The positivism article makes reference to the scientific realist Karl Popper, but of course he wasn't a positivist! Nor a member of the Vienna Circle. But, I'll just take my nose out of it. I originally wrote this article (the space and time one) and ran into a lot of nonsense...as you can see from the discussion on this page.

But just to summarize my quibble: Newton v. Leibniz, Newton thinks space a substance and is a Realist (classic) and Leibniz thinks it is just relational, part of confused perceptions and is an Idealist (classic; Conventionalism: Positivists thought the metric of space-time to be merely a matter of convention and are anti-realists (thinking the concept of space-time a useful fiction) and scientific realists denied this (although in a number of ways).

So, wrote this long thing...because I guess it's time for me to retire from Wikipedia. Best of luck. Spacetimeguy

Well yes, there are interpretations of positivism that are compatible with some forms of anti-realism; sorting it out would be a major task. I will maintain that Mach, Einstein and Newton were not idealists, at least in the sense that they held that the world existed independently of our conception of it.

What I was keen to do is to separate out the view that holds that nothing is real except thought from the view that substance is real, but time and space are not; perhaps this is to ambitious? i think it improves the clarity of the article. I value your opinion, as I think the article you have written is quite good. Banno 02:14, July 13, 2005 (UTC)

Hmm...I think the difficulty is that in these arguments there are a lot of different issues. For example, in the absolutism/relationalism stuff...the argument takes on a very specific tone in the primary texts that is pretty anachronistic (space as "sensorium" in Clarke's letters for example) So, I suppose it's useful to put these things into a more analytic framework whereby the issues really are these two:

1. Is Space-time an object (instead of substance)? and

2. Are there "facts of the matter" concering spatio-temporal determinations (e.g. location)?

In general, then, an Idealist will certainly say no to (1), while it will depend what sort of anti-realism you subscribe to to know the answer to (1) (for example I think Putnam would say that spacetime is an object, per his system, but that VanFraassen would not).

But the answer to (2) is a bit complicated. Leibniz, for example, although he didn't believe that spacetime was an object, does believe there are facts of the matter concerning the lengths of spatial intervals. Conversely, Grunbaum, a realist about spacetime as an object, thought that all spatio-temporal determinations were conventional, i.e. set by some (arbitrary) co-ordinative definition. To complicate matters again, Reichenbach held the self-same view about facts of the matter concerning spatiotemporal determinations, but was very much in the phenomenalist spirit of the positivists in general, and their neo-Kantian Plus view of the role of conceptualization in the setting of facts.

So I don't know, I get worried about the use of idealism and anti-realism in such close proximity to one another as they really are two different creatures. Take for example the flow of time issue (I kind of short shrifted this section...should have said more probably). Take the "B-Theorist" solution to Mctaggart's paradox. On this view, the paradox doesn't arise because a) A-determinations can be reduced to B-determinations (via some "token-reflexive account" or what have you...where what "It is raining now" comes out to / has as truth conditions "The tokening of 'It is raining now' is simultaneous with it raining") and b) real change can be found in the B-series alone.

So, for a B-theorist the flow of time is merely a feature of our experience of time, not found in some objectively moving NOW. Certainly we would call a b-theorist an anti-realist about the flow of time...but idealist? I wouldn't think so...as they believe time (as the B-series) to be what it is independent of observers. But again, to further muck up matters a B-theorist could still be a relationalist about spacetime (spacetime not an object but just a system of relations among events) and a conventionalist about spacetime determinations (e.g. lengths between objects).

Anyway, I'll stop typing now...Spacetimeguy 08:54, July 16, 2005

I've re-jigged the flow of that section, so that the controversial paragraph is in a better position. Open to comments from Idealists.... Banno 05:28, July 15, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] There's scarcely a mention of what the realist position is.

Which is closest to it?--JimWae 05:47, 2005 July 15 (UTC)

Newton, Clark, Mach, Einstein - realists in the sense that they thought objects exist independently of mind. Is that not clear from the final para in that section? Banno 05:56, July 15, 2005 (UTC)

Mach does not come off as a realist with respect to space, nor does Einstein. There's also little explication on what the realist position is regarding space - though I see a little in Newton. Even Kant was also a realist regarding material objects --JimWae 07:49, 2005 July 15 (UTC)

True, but they are far more realists than Kant and McTaggart. The article needs to distinguish various "levels" of realism and idealism - but how to do that? I'm working on Realism in relativity at the moment - but find it difficult to simplify sufficiently. Comments? Banno 08:20, July 15, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] endurantism and perdurantism in space, rather than time...

Endurantist philosophy states that an object is present in its entirity across time, and perdurantist philosophy would state that only particular aspects of an object are present at any one time. I'm interested to know if there is a nomenclature for equivelant philosophies in the spacial dimension - ie. contrasting ideas of whether a given object is, indeed, a distinct object with a specific location in space (spacial equivelant of endurantism), or whether that object is actually an apparently distinct aspect of a single, undifferentiated spacial reality (spacial equivelant of perdurantism).

What are the names for these ideas?

Thanks.

I rather like the labels "entension" / "entended" for the spatial analogue of "endurance" / "enduring" and "pertension" / "pertended" for the spatial analogue of "perdurance" / "perduring", and have tried to use them in print when convenient. You'll also see philosophers referring to entended objects as "extended simples". Josh Parsons 00:11, 12 March 2006 (UTC)

I can only find two philosophers who use that word, 'entension', Josh Parsons and Hud Hudson. But it does seem that the way they use it captures the ideas.

A professor of mine at Indiana University Northwest thinks there are problems with entension. It's in the last section of this paper: A New Argument Against Extended Simples64.12.116.70 17:39, 6 May 2006 (UTC)C.N.

If I have understood it correct, correct me if I'm wrong, entension and pertension are used when we discuss how obects persist through spacetime and perdurance and endurance are used when we only discuss time. /RickardV 2006-11-04

[edit] 26 May 2007 edits

I apologize to those who find this tedious, but "Eternalism" and "Presentism" are both traditionally capitalized. Endurantism and perdurantism, however, traditionally are not. I have no explanation for why this is, but thus is the history of philosophy of time. I have altered the page accordingly. I have also included links to the main pages for these views and spruced up the language under the Eternalism and Presentism headline. There is a lot of work to be done on this page, however. I'm putting it on the top of my list, but help is always appreciated. Postmodern Beatnik 23:19, 26 May 2007 (UTC)