Combining Philosophers

Ideas for Hermarchus, John Mayberry and Theodore Sider

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3 ideas

27. Natural Reality / C. Space / 4. Substantival Space
Space has real betweenness and congruence structure (though it is not the Euclidean concepts) [Sider]
     Full Idea: In metaphysics, space is intrinsically structured; the genuine betweenness and congruence relations are privileged in a way that Euclidean-betweenness and Euclidean-congruence are not.
     From: Theodore Sider (Writing the Book of the World [2011], 03.4)
     A reaction: I note that Einstein requires space to be 'curved', which implies that it is a substance with properties.
27. Natural Reality / C. Space / 6. Space-Time
Space is 3D and lacks a direction; time seems connected to causation [Sider]
     Full Idea: Unlike time, space has three dimensions and lacks a distinguishing direction; unlike space, time seems to be specially connected with causation.
     From: Theodore Sider (Four Dimensionalism [2001], 4.5)
     A reaction: These strike me as nice reasons to doubt (what I already prima facie doubt) that there is a single manifold that is 'space-time', for all that twentieth century physics tells us it is so. A century is a mere click of a clock where truth is concerned.
The central question in the philosophy of time is: How alike are time and space? [Sider]
     Full Idea: The central question in the philosophy of time is: How alike are time and space?
     From: Theodore Sider (Writing the Book of the World [2011], 11.1)