Newton and Leibniz Newton and Leibniz were the first modern philosophers with a rigorous treatment of the structure of Space, so we will begin with them. The Newtonian notion of Space maintains that “Space” is itself a distinctive substance, and that time passes uniformly, without relation to whether anything observes it, or even whether anything happens. This “Absolute Space,” as Newton called it, is composed of a temporally persistent, three-dimensional Euclidean grid, similar to an empty container. All objects are positioned relative to an absolute three-dimensional coordinate system, and all events occur relative to an absolute one-dimensional timeline. This can be considered a wholly objectivistic view, as it maintains …show more content…
Kant argued that, because we could never represent space to ourselves without already having spatial concepts, it must be nothing more than one of the ways in which we cognize the world. The structure of space, therefore, is not indicative of some deep structure of the universe, but rather is a function of our cognitive processes and our fundamental intellectual activity. He further argued that spatial relations have no metaphysical truth to them but are merely assigned by the