Awards
- Winner of Winner of the Lakatos Prize 2014.
Overview
Relationalism about space is a venerable doctrine that is enjoying renewed attention among philosophers and physicists. Relationalists deny that space is ontologically prior to matter and seek to ground all claims about the structure of space in facts about actual and possible configurations of matter. Thus, many relationalists maintain that to say that space is infinite is to say that certain sorts of infinite arrays of material points are possible (even if, in fact, the world contains only a finite amount of matter). Gordon Belot investigates the distinctive notion of geometric possibility that relationalists rely upon. He examines the prospects for adapting to the geometric case the standard philosophical accounts of the related notion of physical possibility, with particular emphasis on Humean, primitivist, and necessitarian accounts of physical and geometric possibility. This contribution to the debate concerning the nature of space will be of interest not only to philosophers and metaphysicians concerned with space and time, but also to those interested in laws of nature, modal notions, or more general issues in ontology.
Full Product Details
Author: Gordon Belot (University of Michigan)
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Imprint: Oxford University Press
Dimensions:
Width: 14.10cm
, Height: 1.30cm
, Length: 21.60cm
Weight: 0.202kg
ISBN: 9780199681051
ISBN 10: 0199681058
Pages: 230
Publication Date: 20 June 2013
Audience:
College/higher education
,
Professional and scholarly
,
Postgraduate, Research & Scholarly
,
Professional & Vocational
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active
Availability: To order
Stock availability from the supplier is unknown. We will order it for you and ship this item to you once it is received by us.
Reviews
a well-motivated contribution to a philosophical debate of great historical significance. * Philosophy in Review * Quite apart from its appeal as a book that contains some wonderful and witty philosophical analysis, it is readable just for its lovely exposition of examples from geometry. It has something for almost everyone and ought to be a staple for philosophers interested in philosophy of space and time, metaphysics, philosophy of physics, or geometry. * Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews *
`Quite apart from its appeal as a book that contains some wonderful and witty philosophical analysis, it is readable just for its lovely exposition of examples from geometry. It has something for almost everyone and ought to be a staple for philosophers interested in philosophy of space and time, metaphysics, philosophy of physics, or geometry. ' Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews `a well-motivated contribution to a philosophical debate of great historical significance. ' Philosophy in Review
Quite apart from its appeal as a book that contains some wonderful and witty philosophical analysis, it is readable just for its lovely exposition of examples from geometry. It has something for almost everyone and ought to be a staple for philosophers interested in philosophy of space and time, metaphysics, philosophy of physics, or geometry. Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews a well-motivated contribution to a philosophical debate of great historical significance. Philosophy in Review
Author Information
Gordon Belot is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Michigan, having previously taught at Princeton University, New York University, and the University of Pittsburgh. He is the author of a number of articles concerning the philosophy of space and time and other topics in philosophy of physics.
