Norton, John D.
(2000)
What Can We Learn about the Ontology of Space and Time from the Theory of Relativity?
[Preprint]
Abstract
In the exuberance that followed Einstein's discoveries, philosophers at one time or another have proposed that his theories support virtually every conceivable moral in ontology. I present an opinionated assessment, designed to avoid this overabundance. We learn from Einstein's theories of novel entanglements of categories once held distinct: space with time; space and time with matter; and space and time with causality. We do not learn that all is relative, that time in the fourth dimension in any non-trivial sense, that coordinate systems and even geometry are conventional or that spacetime should be reduced ontologically to causal, spatio-temporal or other relations.
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What Can We Learn about the Ontology of Space and Time from the Theory of Relativity? (deposited 10 Feb 2001)
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Norton, John D.
What Can We Learn about the Ontology of Space and Time from the Theory of Relativity? (deposited 10 Feb 2001)
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