Tim Maudlin

This essay is born of a misunderstanding. When Barry Loewer mentioned to me that he might be interested in an essay on David Bohm’s version or interpretation of quantum theory, he happened also to mention the work of Wilfrid Sellars, which coincidentally was on his mind. I mistakenly understood that what was wanted was an essay connecting Bohm and Sellars. This directed my thoughts down pathways they would not otherwise have taken, and sent me back to some works of Sellars which had lain neglected on my shelves. What follows is the result of this fortuitous juxtaposition of ideas.

This paper sketches a taxonomy of forms of substantivalism and relationism concerning space and time, and of the traditional arguments for these positions. Several natural sorts of relationism are able to account for Newton's bucket experiment. Conversely, appropriately constructed substantivalism can survive Leibniz's critique, a fact which has been obscured by the conflation of two of Leibniz's arguments. The form of relationism appropriate to the Special Theory of Relativity is also able to evade the problems raised by Field. I survey the effect of the General Theory of Relativity and of plenism on these considerations