Presents Newton's unifying idea of gravitation and explains how he converted physics from a science of explanation into a general mathematical system.

Spacetime substantivalism leads to a radical form of indeterminism within a very broad class of spacetime theories which include our best spacetime theory, general relativity. Extending an argument from Einstein, we show that spacetime substantivalists are committed to very many more distinct physical states than these theories' equations can determine, even with the most extensive boundary conditions.

In this book, Lawrence Sklar demonstrates the interdependence of science and philosophy by examining a number of crucial problems on the nature of space and ...

In metaphysics, we seem to have in every generation an oscillation between realist positions and stances that are in one way or another idealist, instrumentalist, or constructivist. Realists in the philosophy of science are those philosophers who will not conclude, from the fact that scientific theories are undoubtedly constructs of human mentality and culture, that therefore the content of these theories is inevitably some function of the human mentality and culture that have produced them. Realists are unimpressed by response-dependence. Realism (...) is metaphysical optimism; it has not abandoned the notion that exercising our capacities does not disqualify us from discovery. (shrink)