Absolute Versus Relational Space-Time: An Outmoded Debate?

Rynasiewicz, Robert

doi:10.2307/2941076

Cited by 100 publications

(40 citation statements)

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“…Hypothetically, a featureless, homogeneous time may be conceivable, but without change in what occupies it, such a void would have no perceivable meaning, though those who take a substantivist approach still see it as capable of being measured irrespective of whether change is observable or not. For those who see time as meaningful only in terms of change, then, as Massey has argued, all time is relative (Massey 1999; see also Elias 1992) and rooted in the context in which we observe or experience it, 'a paradigmatically indexed and context-related expression' (Read 2002, p. 193;Rynasiewicz 1996). 'Time in the end', claimed Read (2002, p. 209) in his rejection of a substantivist approach, 'is no more mysterious than other more mundane organizational devices: such as maps or tape measures'.…”

Section: What Is Time?mentioning

confidence: 99%

Geography's place in time

Dodgshon

2008

Geografiska Annaler: Series B, Human Geography

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Dodgshon, R. A. (2008). Geography's place in time. Geografiska Annaler, Series B, 90 (1), 1-15.From the moment it began to engage with time in a considered way, human geography has employed a variety of analytical and conceptual approaches to it. Recent work especially has greatly extended the range of these different approaches by stressing the innate variability of time, leading some to talk of ?multiple temporalities? and to pronounce time as ?uneven? even within the same society. Fractured by such differences over how time may be used and interpreted, the possibility of an overarching concept of time in human geography has long gone. However, this does not prevent us from asking whether it is still possible to produce a coherent review of the differences involved. This paper offers such a review, arguing that setting these differences down within a structured framework can provide a clearer sense of how diverse the debate among human geographers has become and the trends of thought that have underpinned this growing diversity. Among the trends identified, it places particular stress on the shift from objectified interpretations to those dealing with relational forms of lived and experiential time and on how the separation of early discussions of space from those on time, their dimensional stand-off from each other, has slowly given way to a view in which space and time are treated as sticky concepts that are difficult to separate from each other.Peer reviewe

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Section: What Is Time?mentioning

confidence: 99%

Geography's place in time

Dodgshon

2008

Geografiska Annaler: Series B, Human Geography

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“…This paper, followed seven years later by Earman and Norton's philosophical argument against the so-called space-time manifold substantivalism (Earman & Norton, 1987), opened a rich philosophical debate that is still alive today. The Hole Argument was immediately regarded by virtually all participants in the debate (Bartels, 1984;Butterfield, 1984Butterfield, , 1987Butterfield, , 1988Butterfield, , 1989Maudlin, 1988;Rynasiewicz, 1994Rynasiewicz, , 1996, and many others) as being intimately tied to the deep nature of space and time, at least as they are represented by the mathematical models of GR. From 1987 onward, the debate centered essentially about the ontological position to be taken in interpreting the so-called Leibniz equivalence, which is the terminology introduced by Earman and Norton to characterize philosophically the relation between diffeomorphic models of GR satisfying the assumptions of the Hole Argument.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Explaining Leibniz equivalence as difference of non-inertial appearances: Dis-solution of the Hole Argument and physical individuation of point-events

Lusanna¹,

Pauri²

2006

Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part B: Studies in

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Abstract"The last remnant of physical objectivity of space-time" is disclosed in the case of a continuous family of spatially non-compact models of general relativity (GR). The physical individuation of point-events is furnished by the autonomous degrees of freedom of the gravitational field, (viz, the Dirac observables) which represent -as it were -the ontic part of the metric field. The physical role of the epistemic part (viz. the gauge variables) is likewise clarified as embodying the unavoidable non-inertial aspects of GR. At the end the philosophical import of the Hole Argument is substantially weakened and in fact the Argument itself dis-solved, while a specific four-dimensional holistic and structuralist view of space-time (called point-structuralism) emerges, including elements common to the tradition of both substantivalism and relationism. The observables of our models undergo real temporal change: this gives new evidence to the fact that statements like the frozentime character of evolution, as other ontological claims about GR, are model dependent.

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“…Those opting -much more reasonably, in our opinion -for "the manifold plus the metric field" (Maudlin (1990), Stachel (1993) also correctly point out that the metric provides the chrono-geometrical structure as well as, most significantly, the causal structure of spacetime. To the extent that one can see good arguments for both options -or even if, as we believe, the second option is the only plausible one -such an "ambiguous" role of the metric seems to provide one of the main arguments to claim that the early-modern debate between substantivalists and relationists is now "outdated", because in GR it does not admit of a clear formulation (Rynasiewicz 1996 …”

Section: The Hole Argument and Its Consequencesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Holism and Structuralism in Classical and Quantum General Relativity

Dorato¹,

Pauri²

2006

The Structural Foundations of Quantum Gravity

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The main aim of our paper is to show that interpretative issues belonging to classical General Relativity (GR) might be preliminary to a deeper understanding of conceptual problems stemming from ongoing attempts at constructing a quantum theory of gravity. Among such interpretative issues, we focus on the meaning of general covariance and the related question of the identity of points, by basing our investigation on the Hamiltonian formulation of GR. In particular, we argue that the adoption of a peculiar gauge-fixing within the canonical reduction of ADM metric gravity may yield a new solution to the debate between substantivalists and relationists, by suggesting a tertium quid between these two age-old positions. Such a third position enables us to evaluate the controversial relationship between entity realism and structural realism in a well-defined case study. After having indicated the possible developments of this approach in Quantum Gravity, we discuss the structuralist and holistic features of the class of spacetime models that are used in the above mentioned canonical reduction.2

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Absolute Versus Relational Space-Time: An Outmoded Debate?

Cited by 100 publications

References 0 publications

Geography's place in time

Geography's place in time

Explaining Leibniz equivalence as difference of non-inertial appearances: Dis-solution of the Hole Argument and physical individuation of point-events

Holism and Structuralism in Classical and Quantum General Relativity

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