The Concept of Nature: The Tarner Lectures Delivered in Trinity College, November 1919Whitehead, Alfred North
Philosophy
The Concept of Nature: The Tarner Lectures Delivered in Trinity College, November 1919
Whitehead, Alfred North
Knowledge, Theory of; Nature; Science -- Philosophy
The absolute theory of space is analogous to the corresponding theory of
time, but the reasons for its maintenance are weaker. Space, on this
theory, is a system of extensionless points which are the relata in
space-ordering relations which can technically be combined into one
relation. This relation does not arrange the points in one linear series
analogously to the simple method of the time-ordering relation for
instants. The essential logical characteristics of this relation from
which all the properties of space spring are expressed by mathematicians
in the axioms of geometry. From these axioms[3] as framed by modern
mathematicians the whole science of geometry can be deduced by the
strictest logical reasoning. The details of these axioms do not now
concern us. The points and the relations are jointly known to us in our
apprehension of space, each implying the other. What happens in space,
occupies space. This relation of occupation is not usually stated for
events but for objects. For example, Pompey's statue would be said to
occupy space, but not the event which was the assassination of Julius
Caesar. In this I think that ordinary usage is unfortunate, and I hold
that the relations of events to space and to time are in all respects
analogous. But here I am intruding my own opinions which are to be
discussed in subsequent lectures. Thus the theory of absolute space
requires that we are aware of two fundamental relations, the
space-ordering relation, which holds between points, and the
space-occupation relation between points of space and material objects.
[3] Cf. (for example) _Projective Geometry_ by Veblen and Young, vol. i.
1910, vol. ii. 1917, Ginn and Company, Boston, U.S.A.
This theory lacks the two main supports of the corresponding theory of
absolute time. In the first place space does not extend beyond nature in
the sense that time seems to do. Our thoughts do not seem to occupy
space in quite the same intimate way in which they occupy time. For
example, I have been thinking in a room, and to that extent my thoughts
are in space. But it seems nonsense to ask how much volume of the room
they occupied, whether it was a cubic foot or a cubic inch; whereas the
same thoughts occupy a determinate duration of time, say, from eleven to
twelve on a certain date.
Thus whereas the relations of a relative theory of time are required to
relate thoughts, it does not seem so obvious that the relations of a
relative theory of space are required to relate them. The connexion of
thought with space seems to have a certain character of indirectness
which appears to be lacking in the connexion of thought with time.
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