World Enough and Space-Time
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 9689231 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Steven F Savitt (University of British Columbia, corresponding author) |
| Year | 1992 |
| Volume | 31 |
| Issue | 4 |
| Pages | 701-706 |
| Publication date | 1992-01-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Dialogue (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0012-2173 • E-ISSN: 1759-0949 |
| Publisher | Cambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1017/s0012217300016218 |
| OpenAlex | W2119993940 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 116 |
| References cited | 2 |
John Earman's new book, World Enough and Space-Time (WEST) , is a brisk account of the controversy between space-time absolutists and relationists. The book is intended, one is told, to be “appropriate for use in an upper-level undergraduate or beginning graduate course in the philosophy of science” (p. xi), but Earman's no-holds-barred approach to the mathematics of space-time theories will have bludgeoned most philosophical readers, undergraduate or beyond, into submission long before it is revealed that Pirani and Williams “have studied the integrability conditions for Born-rigid motions in curved space-times and have shown that space-times of Petrov types II, III, and N do not admit of nonrotating Born-rigid motions” (p. 101). I say this sadly, because Earman's book is a discerning review of an important literature, and most of its main arguments can be grasped even if some technical details remain out of reach. The more you reach for those details, the more compelling the book will become
Calculus (dental) · Epistemology · Mathematics education · Physics · Space (punctuation) · Space time · Spacetime · Theoretical physics · Engineering · Mathematics · Philosophy · Philosophy and History of Science · Quantum Mechanics and Applications · Relativity and Gravitational Theory
Leibniz and the Metaphysics of Motion
Black Hole Philosophy
Duality and ontology
Relativity and Three Four-dimensionalisms
Substantivalism vs Relationalism About Space in Classical Physics
A Tale of Two Equations Ludi Vitae or Motus Vita
In Search of (Spacetime) Structuralism
Lawful Persistence
The Bare Necessities
Effective spacetime geometry
A star in the Minkowskian sky
Time (hole?) machines
Explanation, analyticity and constitutive principles in spacetime theories
Sounds Like Light
Who's afraid of coordinate systems? An essay on representation of spacetime structure
Explaining Leibniz equivalence as difference of non-inertial appearances
Prospects for a new account of time reversal
Some Philosophical Prehistory of the (Earman-Norton) hole argument
Redundant epistemic symmetries
Erich Kretschmann as a proto-logical-empiricist
An empirical approach to symmetry and probability
Space and Time in Particle and Field Physics
Conceptual Foundations of Yang–Mills Theories
Another look at general covariance and the equivalence of reference frames
How could relativity be anything other than physical
The “dynamics” of Leibnizian relationism
On Einstein algebras and relativistic spacetimes
Physical relativity from a functionalist perspective
Theories of Newtonian gravity and empirical indistinguishability
A brief comment on Maxwell(/Newton)[-Huygens] spacetime
Prerequisites for a Consistent Framework of Quantum Gravity
The relativity of inertia and reality of nothing
Drawing the line between kinematics and dynamics in special relativity
The deep metaphysics of quantum gravity
Symmetries and the philosophy of language
What spacetime does
Struggling with Causality
Interpreting Supersymmetry
What is the Value in an Intrinsic Formalism
Comparing the structures of mathematical objects
Knox’s inertial spacetime functionalism (and a better alternative)
Burgess and the bucket
Invariance or equivalence
Motivating dualities
On the possibility of non-eternalism without absolute simultaneity
Once upon a time in superspace
On symmetry and duality
Representational schemes for theories with symmetry
Reflections on Parity Nonconservation
Mathematics and Reality
Strange Couplings and Space-Time Structure
Essay Review
Huygens on Inertial Structure and Relativity
Descartes, Spacetime, and Relational Motion
On Space-Time Singularities, Holes, and Extensions
Einstein Algebras and the Hole Argument
Invariance, Interpretation, and Motivation
Leibniz on Force and Absolute Motion
Are Dynamic Shifts Dynamical Symmetries
Monism on the One Hand, Pluralism on the Other
Reconsidering Kant, Friedman, Logical Positivism, and the Exact Sciences
Holes and Determinism
Maxwell-Huygens, Newton-Cartan, and Saunders-Knox Space-Times
Understanding Gauge
Gauge Invariance, Cauchy Problem, Indeterminism, and Symmetry Breaking
Johnny's So Long at the Ferromagnet
Can the Bundle Theory Save Substantivalism from the Hole Argument
The Nature of a Constant of Nature
On the Cartesian Ontology of General Relativity
Mirroring as an A Priori Symmetry
Rethinking Newton’s Principia
What theoretical equivalence could not be
Substance, Relations, and Arguments about the Nature of Space-Time
Kant's nutshell argument for idealism
How to Be a Spacetime Substantivalist
A solution to some grounding problems for relationism
Reviving Reduction
Playing Ozma Games with Kibble Balances
Susy, Spin-Statistics, and all that… On the contrast between Spin-Statistics and Wigner’s Theorem
Spacetime functionalists should be inferentialists
Symmetries as Isomorphisms
A Hierarchy of Spacetime Symmetries
A Dynamical Perspective on the Direction of Time
Kinematical Equivalence and Cosmic Conspiracies
Are Maxwell Gravitation and Newton-Cartan Theory Theoretically Equivalent
Determinism and Asymmetry in General Relativity
How (Not) to Define Inertial Frames
A Future for Presentism
Philosophy and the Foundations of Dynamics
Theory and Truth
Building Enduring Objects Out of Spacetime
Identity in Physics
On the Viability of Galilean Relationalism
Mathematical Constructivism in Spacetime
Geometry, Fields, and Spacetime
Towards a Geometrical Understanding of the CPT Theorem
The Rotating Discs Argument Defeated
Absolute Quantum Mechanics
Absolute versus Relational Spacetime
Determinism and Modality
| Unique citing works | 116 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 3,31 |
| Citation span | 1991 - 2025 (35) |
| Citation velocity | recent |
| Highly cited | Yes |
| Citation types | Neutral: 29 |