Spatial Attributes and Relations

Abstract

Abstract It is perhaps not possible to identify a clearly delineated subset of the attributes of an object which are to count as the spatial ones. Attributes may be more or less spatial. At one extreme are those properties of an object, such as shape, size, and position, that can be expressed in purely geometrical terms; they can be regarded as properties of the space occupied by the object just as well as properties of the object itself. Next come physical properties which include a spatial element as an essential component of their definition, but which are not purely geometrical; an example is density, which involves both volume (geometrical) and mass (non-geometrical). Third, there are attributes which are spatial only in the sense that they are dependent on more immediately spatial attributes; an example is colour, which can only be attributed to extended, and hence spatial, objects. In this chapter I draw the line between the second and third categories: I shall regard density as a spatial attribute, but not colour. One reason for this is that change in density always involves an overt spatial change, whereas change in colour need not.