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Full Idea
Because of the multidimensionality of space and unidimensionality of time, empty space is measurable in ways in which empty time necessarily is not.
Gist of Idea
Empty space is measurable in ways in which empty time necessarily is not
Source
report of Jonathan Bennett (Kant's Analytic [1966], p.175) by Sydney Shoemaker - Time Without Change p.49 n4
Book Ref
Shoemaker,Sydney: 'Identity, Cause and Mind' [OUP 2003], p.49
A Reaction
An interesting observation, which could have been used by Samuel Clarke in his attempts to prove absolute space to Leibniz. The point does not prove absolute space, of course, but it seems to make a difference.
| 8435 | Causes are between events ('the explosion') or between facts/states of affairs ('a bomb dropped') [Bennett] |
| 8437 | The full counterfactual story asserts a series of events, because counterfactuals are not transitive [Bennett] |
| 8436 | Either cause and effect are subsumed under a conditional because of properties, or it is counterfactual [Bennett] |
| 8438 | A counterfactual about an event implies something about the event's essence [Bennett] |
| 8439 | Maybe each event has only one possible causal history [Bennett] |
| 8440 | Maybe an event's time of occurrence is essential to it [Bennett] |
| 8441 | Delaying a fire doesn't cause it, but hastening it might [Bennett] |
| 8978 | Events are made of other things, and are not fundamental to ontology [Bennett] |
| 10364 | Facts are about the world, not in it, so they can't cause anything [Bennett] |
| 8592 | Empty space is measurable in ways in which empty time necessarily is not [Bennett, by Shoemaker] |