Description
Book SynopsisIn Toward a Directionalist Theory of Space: On Going Nowhere, H. Scott Hestevold formulates a new relationalist theory of space by appealing to the view that the universe is directioned and that there thereby exist spatial relations that Leibniz overlookeddirectional relations such that specific directional relations would obtain between any two objects. This directionalist/relationalist theory would allow the reduction of space-implying claims to claims about objects and the directional relations they exhibit, and it would also preserve absolutist intuitions that motivate standard arguments for substantivalist space:intuitions involving, for example, absolute motion and the possibility that all objects are moving uniformly.
Extending the directionalist/relationalist theory of space to the Special Composition Question, Hestevold addresses the problem of when discrete objects compose a whole. He also uses the directionalist/relationalist theory to formulate reductivist theori
Trade Review"Hestevold’s book is a sophisticated, well-informed, and original treatment of thorny issues in analytic metaphysics. He grounds his discussion of space and directionality in the classic debate between Newton and Leibniz, but deftly takes it into the contemporary relativistic understanding of spacetime, with much to say about composition, persistence, continuity, and dependent particulars along the way. "
-- Steven D. Hales, Bloomsburg University
Table of ContentsPrefaceChapter 1: The Map to Nowhere and Beyond
Chapter 2: Spatial Directionalism
Chapter 3: A Directionalist Theory of Space
Chapter 4: Defending Spacelessness
Chapter 5: The Special Composition Question Revisited
Chapter 6: Is the Road to Nowhere Without Boundaries and Holes?
Chapter 7: Is Modern Physics a Roadblock to Going Nowhere?
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