Absolute Time: Rifts in Early Modern British Metaphysics

Cover......Page 1
Absolute Time: Rifts in Early Modern British Metaphysics......Page 4
Copyright......Page 5
Contents......Page 6
Abbreviations......Page 10
Chronology of Selected Writings......Page 12
Acknowledgements......Page 16
Introduction......Page 18
 Existing Literature......Page 19
 Scope......Page 21
 General Theses......Page 23
 Overview......Page 27
  1.2.1 Antiquity: Plato, Aristotle, Plotinus, and Augustine......Page 30
  1.2.2 The long Middle Ages: Averroes to Suárez......Page 35
  1.2.3 Descartes......Page 37
  1.3.1 British Aristotelianism......Page 38
  1.3.2 British natural philosophy......Page 40
  1.3.3 British Platonism......Page 41
  1.3.4 British materialism......Page 44
 1.4 The Wider British Seventeenth-Century Scene......Page 45
 2.1 Introduction......Page 48
 2.2 Sketching More’s Life and Works......Page 49
 2.3 More’s Evolving Views on Time and Duration......Page 50
  2.4.1 More on ‘nullibism’ and ‘holenmerism’......Page 57
  2.4.2 More’s mature asymmetric account of God’s presence in space and time......Page 60
 2.5 The Development of More’s Early Views on Time......Page 62
 2.6 Understanding More’s Mature Absolutism......Page 68
 2.7 The Influence of More’s Account of Absolute Duration......Page 73
 3.2 Jan Baptist van Helmont’s Platonic Time......Page 75
 3.3 Pierre Gassendi’s Space and Time Absolutism......Page 77
 3.4 Walter Charleton and the Reality of Time......Page 80
 4.1 Introduction......Page 85
 4.2 Sketching Barrow’s Life and Works......Page 86
 4.3 Barrow’s Texts on Space and Time......Page 89
  4.4.1 The first reading: Barrow lacks a deeper metaphysics of space and time......Page 94
  4.4.2 The second reading: identifying space and time with God’s attributes......Page 95
  4.4.3 The third reading: space and time as unreal containers......Page 98
  4.5.1 Barrow as a modal relationist......Page 99
  4.5.2 Modal relationism in Barrow and Leibniz......Page 101
  4.5.3 An objection to reading Barrow as a modal relationist......Page 105
 4.6 Barrow, Newton, and Leibniz......Page 108
 5.2 New Gassendist and Morean Absolutists......Page 110
 5.3 Emerging Critics of Absolutism......Page 113
 6.1 Introduction......Page 121
 6.2 Sketching Newton’s Life and Works......Page 122
 6.3 The Existing Scholarship on Newtonian Time and Space......Page 124
 6.4 A New Causation Reading of De Gravitatione......Page 127
 6.5 God’s Presence in Time and Space......Page 136
 6.6 After De Gravitatione......Page 141
 7.1 Introduction......Page 142
 7.2 Sketching Locke’s Life and Works......Page 143
  7.3.1 Locke’s 1671 Draft B......Page 145
  7.3.2 Locke’s 1676–1678 journals......Page 146
  7.3.3 Locke’s 1685 Draft C......Page 151
 7.4 A Newtonian Interlude: Locke, Newton, and the 1687 Principia......Page 154
  7.5.1 Reading Locke’s 1690 Essay as explicitly neutral......Page 157
  7.5.2 Undermining the absolutist reading of Locke’s 1690 Essay......Page 158
  7.5.3 Reading Locke’s 1690 Essay as implicitly relationist......Page 164
 8.2 New Gassendist, Morean, and Newtonian Absolutists......Page 167
 8.3 New Critics of Absolutism......Page 170
 9.1 Introduction......Page 173
 9.2 Sketching Clarke’s Life and Works......Page 174
  9.3.1 The existing scholarship......Page 177
  9.3.2 Clarke’s 1704 A Demonstration of the Being and Attributes of God......Page 178
 9.4 Another Newtonian interlude: the 1706 Optice and 1713 Principia......Page 180
  9.5.1 Clarke’s 1713–1719 letters on time and space......Page 181
  9.5.2 Clarke’s post-1719 texts on time, space, and deity......Page 189
  9.6.2 Why Clarke’s God is not extended, nor nullibist......Page 193
  9.6.3 Clarke’s holenmeric God......Page 196
 9.7 In Summary: Clarke, More, and Newton......Page 197
 10.1 Introduction......Page 199
  10.2.1 New British absolutists 1704–1731......Page 200
  10.2.2 New British critics of absolutism 1704–1731......Page 204
  10.2.3 Edmund Law’s 1731 Essay and the storm that followed......Page 207
  10.3.1 Sketching Jackson’s life and works......Page 213
  10.3.2 Jackson’s 1734 The Existence and Unity of God......Page 215
  10.3.3 Absolutism and eternalism......Page 219
 10.4 After 1734: The Debate Rolls On......Page 220
Conclusion......Page 224
Bibliography......Page 228
Index......Page 246