more from this thinker | more from this text
Full Idea
If the theory of relativity might be thought to support an idealist construal of space and time, it is no less absolutistic about space-time than Newton's theory was about space.
Gist of Idea
Relativity is as absolutist about space-time as Newton was about space
Source
J. Alberto Coffa (The Semantic Tradition from Kant to Carnap [1991])
Book Ref
Coffa,J.Alberto: 'The Semantic Tradition from Kant to Carnap' [CUP 1993], p.196
A Reaction
[He cites Minkowski, Weyl and Cartan for this conclusion] Coffa is clearly a bit cross about philosophers who draw naive idealist and relativist conclusions from relativity.
14525 | Stoics say time is incorporeal and self-sufficient; Epicurus says it is a property of properties of things [Epicurus] |
13311 | Does time exist on its own? Did anything precede it? Did it pre-exist the cosmos? [Seneca] |
22915 | Newton needs intervals of time, to define velocity and acceleration [Newton, by Le Poidevin] |
22893 | Newton thought his laws of motion needed absolute time [Newton, by Bardon] |
17012 | Time exists independently, and flows uniformly [Newton] |
14012 | Absolute time, from its own nature, flows equably, without relation to anything external [Newton] |
5536 | If space and time exist absolutely, we must assume the existence of two pointless non-entities [Kant] |
16921 | If all empirical sensation of bodies is removed, space and time are still left [Kant] |
24141 | Having a sense of time presupposes absolute time [Nietzsche] |
12689 | Simultaneity can be temporal equidistance from the Big Bang [Ellis] |
18279 | Relativity is as absolutist about space-time as Newton was about space [Coffa] |
16264 | I believe the passing of time is a fundamental fact about the world [Maudlin] |
14013 | Special Relativity allows an absolute past, future, elsewhere and simultaneity [Bourne] |