Philosophy of Science Commons^™

The Case For Substantivism, Carolyn Brighouse

Carolyn Brighouse

My dissertation is a discussion of the ontological commitment of spacetime theories. I am concerned about whether we should be realists about spacetime. I outline a version of substantivalism that I show is attractive on general grounds in that it treats spacetime in just the same way that a realist ought to treat entities she is a realist about. I then show that this version of substantivalism is immune to the hole argument and other recent criticisms of substantivalism. I also re-examine traditional arguments for substantivalism, and show that my version is at least as well supported as more traditional …