Abstract
In his recent series on “Criticism in the History of Science: Newton on Absolute Space, Time, and Motion”—Philosophical Review, LXVIII (1959), I–29; 203–227—Professor Stephen Toulmin has argued that the concepts of absolute space and time functioned, in Newton’s scientific work, as “mathematical ideals”—as formal elements of an axiomatic system—rather than as empirical postulates.
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© 1984 D. Reidel Publishing Company, Dordrecht, Holland
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Shapere, D. (1984). Mathematical Ideals and Metaphysical Concepts. In: Reason and the Search for Knowledge. Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science, vol 78. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-010-9731-4_2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-010-9731-4_2
Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht
Print ISBN: 978-90-277-1641-5
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