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AGPhil: Arbeitsgruppe Philosophie der Physik

AGPhil 10: General Topics I

AGPhil 10.3: Vortrag

Freitag, 3. April 2020, 12:00–12:30, H-HS III

On Leibniz’s contribution to the concept of absolute space — •Dieter Suisky — Berlin

For having now available almost all writings of Leibniz and Newton, it becomes obvious that there are two versions of absolute theory of space and time and it is not exclusively Newton who represents the absolute side. The Leibnitian version is even the earlier one (1669-71). The later developments, however, manifested the roles of Newton and Leibniz in the relational/absolute debate (Barbour, Smolin). Leibniz himself contributed a lot to the later interpretation for he tried to enforce the impact of his criticism by the substantial turn in the end of 1670s. His arguments for and against absolute space are:

"If space is a certain thing consisting in a supposed pure extension, whilst the nature of matter is to fill space, and motion is change of space, then motion will be something absolute; and so when two bodies are approaching one another, it will be possible to tell which of them is in motion and which at rest; (...). And from this will follow those conclusions which I once showed in the Theory of Motion Abstractly Considered. But in reality (...) motion is not something absolute, but consists in relation." (Leibniz (Early 1677))

It will be demonstrated that Leibniz mainly developed his absolute theory as a response to Huygens’ Rules of collision in a writing entitled On the causes of motion whereas Newton’s analysis in On Gravitation basically concerns Descartes’ theory. The former debates will be related to the currently discussed question of background dependence.