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Introduction

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 December 2009

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Summary

Space poses a central, intriguing and challenging question for metaphysics. It has puzzled us ever since Parmenides and Zeno argued paradoxically that spatial division and therefore motion were impossible and Plato wrote of space in Timaeus as an active entity in the working of the world. It is easy to see why space is so problematic. On the one hand, we are drawn to make very powerful statements about it. Everything that is real has some spatial position. Space is infinitely large, infinitely penetrable and infinitely divisible. On the other, despite our confidence in these strong claims, space seems elusive to the point of eeriness. It seems to be largely without properties, apart from the few strong ones just recited. It is imperceptible by any mode of perception. It has no material property, no causal one, it does nothing. It seems to have no feature which we can learn about by observation. Arguably, it has a prominent role in natural science but it is far from obvious just what it is. Though being spatial is a mark of the real, space itself seems, paradoxically perhaps, unreal a mere nothing.

This outlines some of the nodal points of an ancient debate in a rather artless way. If any of the strong claims is correct we can find out which only after carefully arguing through a range of intricate issues. A great light has been shed on the whole issue by developments in geometry and the sciences, especially in this century and the last.

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Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 1994

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  • Introduction
  • Graham Nerlich
  • Book: The Shape of Space
  • Online publication: 04 December 2009
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511621130.002
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  • Introduction
  • Graham Nerlich
  • Book: The Shape of Space
  • Online publication: 04 December 2009
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511621130.002
Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • Introduction
  • Graham Nerlich
  • Book: The Shape of Space
  • Online publication: 04 December 2009
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511621130.002
Available formats
×