SPACE PHILOSOPHY

Abstract

INSPIRED by a dynamist Naturphilosophie and looking for a mathematics of the natura naturans, the founders of modern mathematics in Germany made some lasting contributions in the attempt to go beyond perceptible space (“Anschauungsraum”). Hermann Grassmann’s extension theory, Johann Benedict Listing’s topology, Bernhard Riemann’s non-Euclidean manifold theory, Carl Gustav Jacob Jacobi’s approach to non-mechanistic theory and last but not least Georg Cantor’s transfinite set theory were all influenced by the tradition of Naturphilosophie. One central motivation for the new mathematics was to decipher the so-called “inner side of nature” which was thought to be invisible but nonetheless physical. As a result, mathematics was understood not only in terms of quantity but of morphogenetic quality and as a tool to recognize the intrinsic possibilities of structuring and organizing nature. This essay focuses on the philosophical viewpoints of Christian Samuel Weiss, Justus and Hermann Grassmann, Bernhard Riemann and their reception of Schelling’s philosophy. Riemann deconstructed empiricist theories of space so as to glean the fundamental constitution of space. One result was that a given, fixed and static metric is not necessary for the understanding of space. The underlying topological substratum (Hans Freudenthal’s term) has no specific metric but is capable of exhibiting any possible metric. Riemann’s claims are compared with Schelling’s theory of space in his “Darstellung des Naturprocesses” (1843–44). My thesis is that Schelling’s philosophy of the emergence of space can be read in Riemannian terms and that it is an interesting model in the context of modern questions.