Abstract
The philosophy of space and time did not begin with Newton and Leibniz, but there are perfectly good reasons why contemporary discussions see their origin in the controversy between those two. On the one hand, the issues explicitly raised between them—especially, and most obviously, the epistemological and methodological questions surrounding Newton’s theory of absolute space and motion—have never lost their relevance to the continuing evolution of physics. On the other hand, in different but equally unprecedented ways, they saw the question of the nature of space and time as part of a larger set of deeply interconnected questions, not only in the foundations of physics, but also in metaphysics, epistemology, and the foundations of mathematics.
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DiSalle, R. (2011). Pitholes in Space-Time: Structure and Ontology of Physical Geometry. In: DeVidi, D., Hallett, M., Clarke, P. (eds) Logic, Mathematics, Philosophy, Vintage Enthusiasms. The Western Ontario Series in Philosophy of Science, vol 75. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-0214-1_17
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