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The Causal Efficacy of Space

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 March 2022

Dudley Shapere
Dudley Shapere*
Affiliation:
The University of Chicago
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Abstract

Through an analysis of conditions under which the question of spatial anisotropy can be raised, the present paper brings out intimate conceptual relationships between the scientific concept of space and the concepts of entities, behavior, and explanation specified by scientific theories. Thus scientific departures from ordinary usage (or from usage in other scientific theories) of the term “space” entail corresponding shifts in the use of other terms not generally seen to be connected. As a case study of the relations between these terms, and of the refusal to allow the possibility of spatial anisotropy, Newtonian mechanics is examined.

Type
Research Article
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 31 , Issue 2 , April 1964 , pp. 111 - 121
Copyright
Copyright © The Philosophy of Science Association 1964

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