The Scientific Intelligibility of Absolute Space: A Study of Newtonian Argument

Abstract

x THERE IS a long tradition of discussion concerning the origin and logical status of Newton's Laws of Motion. Although necessarily this has involved some consideration of absolute space, it has not involved enough. In recent years it has been widely assumed, on grounds associated with operationalism and the verifiability theory of meaning, that Newton's employment of absolute space in the Principia is ill-founded. It is assumed that absolute space cannot be taken seriously as a component of mechanical explanations and that the Principia can be readily reconstructed without it. Newton's own employment of the notion is dismissed as due to his imposing his eccentric metaphysical beliefs upon the conceptual foundations of his science. Absolute space is a metaphysical appendage, unworthy of the serious attention of the empirically oriented scientist. The neglect of absolute space is doubly unfortunate: it obscures the actual role that absolute space played in Newton's mechanics, and it obscures the realisation that those who reject Newton's arguments on this matter do so on grounds which involve a different conception of scientific laws from that which Newton held. A consequence of this neglect is that philosophers of science have devoted much time to the reconstruction of Newtonian mechanics, but little to Newton's own arguments. Yet these arguments are deep, as I propose to show. It is a good methodological principle of the philosophy of science not to reject too readily the commitments of a scientist of the stature of Newton. The scientific practice of a Newton is likely to reveal more about the nature of science than a priori epistemological and semantical doctrines. I hope to show that Newton's employment of absolute space is theoretically and methodologically proper, even if today there are grounds for holding that absolute space does not exist, or at least that there are no grounds for believing that it does exist. Things are often spoken of as 'in space', where there appears to be a distinction between things and space. The central point at issue in this essay is: 'Is space, conceived of as distinct from things, among our ontological commitments?' Or: 'Is space to be included among the entities which we Received 5 November 1969