{"agent_id":"leibniz","agent_name":"Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz","slug":"space-and-time","label":"Space and time: are they real absolute containers, or only systems of relations among things?","topic":"Space and time","question":"Are they real absolute containers, or only systems of relations among things?","position":"Space and time are not real things subsisting in themselves, not absolute containers in which God set the world. Space is the order of things that coexist; time the order of things that succeed one another; both are ideal — systems of relations, well-founded but not substances. Two principles dissolve the absolute. By sufficient reason: were space an absolute container, there could be no reason why God placed the universe here rather than shifted over, or created it at one moment rather than another, since the points of empty space and the moments of empty time are perfectly alike. By the identity of indiscernibles: the universe shifted entire would be indiscernible from the universe unshifted, hence not a distinct state of affairs at all.","paragraphs":[[{"t":"Space and time are not real things subsisting in themselves, not absolute containers in which God set the world.","n":[]},{"t":"Space is the order of things that coexist; time the order of things that succeed one another; both are ideal — systems of relations, well-founded but not substances.","n":[]},{"t":"Two principles dissolve the absolute.","n":[]},{"t":"By sufficient reason: were space an absolute container, there could be no reason why God placed the universe here rather than shifted over, or created it at one moment rather than another, since the points of empty space and the moments of empty time are perfectly alike.","n":[1,2,3]}],[{"t":"By the identity of indiscernibles: the universe shifted entire would be indiscernible from the universe unshifted, hence not a distinct state of affairs at all.","n":[4]}]],"texts":"The Leibniz-Clarke Correspondence (1715-16, ed. Alexander), especially the third, fourth, and fifth letters; 'On the Ultimate Origination of Things' (1697); Monadology and the New Essays on the ideality of space and time. Reception: Samuel Clarke and Isaac Newton on absolute space and time (the bucket/rotation argument); the modern absolute-versus-relational debate in philosophy of physics; the reception of Leibniz's relationalism in Mach and after.","works":["The Leibniz-Clarke Correspondence (1715-16, ed. Alexander), especially the third, fourth, and fifth letters","'On the Ultimate Origination of Things' (1697)","Monadology and the New Essays on the ideality of space and time"],"reception":"Samuel Clarke and Isaac Newton on absolute space and time (the bucket/rotation argument); the modern absolute-versus-relational debate in philosophy of physics; the reception of Leibniz's relationalism in Mach and after.","status":"The Leibniz-Clarke correspondence is the classic confrontation of relational and absolute conceptions of space and time, and remains a touchstone in philosophy of physics. Clarke pressed Newton's rotating-bucket argument for absolute motion; the disputed question is whether relationalism can accommodate the dynamical facts of rotation and acceleration that seemed to require absolute space.","era":"1646-1716","discipline":"Philosophy","refs":[{"n":1,"work":"From the Letters to Clarke (1715–16)","page":"pp. 517–518","canonical":"","quote":"But I shall only use, at present, one demonstration, which the author here gives me occasion to insist upon. I say, then, that if space were an absolute being, something would happen for which it would be impossible that there should be a sufficient reason—which is against my axiom. And I can prove it thus.","label":"From the Letters to Clarke (1715–16), pp. 517–518"},{"n":2,"work":"The Controversy between Leibniz and Clarke, 1715-16","page":"p. 718","canonical":"","quote":"In which latter case, there may be very good reason to act, though two or more ways of acting may be absolutely indifferent. This learned writer always contrary opinion is grounded upon the supposition of a real absolute space, which I have demonstratively confuted by the principle of the want of a sufficient reason. 53.","label":"The Controversy between Leibniz and Clarke, 1715-16, p. 718"},{"n":3,"work":"From the Letters to Clarke (1715–16)","page":"pp. 538–539","canonical":"","quote":"It is true that, exactly speaking, there is not any one body that is perfectly and entirely at rest, but we frame an abstract notion of rest by considering the thing mathematically. Thus have I left nothing unanswered of what has been alleged for the absolute reality of space.","label":"From the Letters to Clarke (1715–16), pp. 538–539"},{"n":4,"work":"The Leibniz-Clarke Correspondence","page":"pp. 28–29","canonical":"","quote":"For when in his mind, he decides to put pawns on KR4 and QBz, no choice is involved; the pawns, as it were, only come into existence in situ. Now clearly God, when he created the world, was in the position of the man who invented the problem, not the man who set it out on the board.","label":"The Leibniz-Clarke Correspondence, pp. 28–29"}],"answer":null,"siblings":[{"slug":"monads-and-idealism","label":"Monads and idealism: are the ultimate constituents of reality simple immaterial substances, with bodies less than fully real?"},{"slug":"pre-established-harmony","label":"Pre-established harmony: do mind and body, and all substances, agree without ever truly interacting?"},{"slug":"truth-sufficient-reason-and-the-identity-of-indiscernibles","label":"Truth, sufficient reason, and the identity of indiscernibles: is the whole metaphysics derived from the logic of the complete concept?"},{"slug":"contingency-and-freedom","label":"Contingency and freedom: does the complete-concept theory make Leibniz a closet Spinozist who denies real contingency?"},{"slug":"the-best-of-all-possible-worlds","label":"The best of all possible worlds: does the problem of evil refute the goodness or wisdom of God?"}]}