Abstract

Of the three views concerning the ontological status of space, the prime-stuff view is defended. This is accomplished in three steps: First, through an examination of Descartes' version of the prime-stuff view, it is demonstrated that the view is a plausible one, in that it violates neither the principles of logic nor the most general laws of physics. Nonetheless, it is also shown that, because of epistemological difficulties, having to do with the derivation of dynamic from nondynamic properties, the prime-stuff view cannot be proven directly. Second, it is argued that, in the debate between the relative view of Leibniz and Mach and the container view of Newton, what is really proven is only a type of view, viz., reductionism. Third, an early, pre-Critical argument of Kant is developed and defended as a defense of another type of view, viz., absolutism. Since the prime-stuff view, then, is both plausible and the only specific view consistent with both the reductionist and the absolutist types of views, the prime-stuff view is proven, thereby, in an indirect manner, consistent with the epistemological restriction cited