Neo-Leibnizian Theory of space.

Breaking all barriers of common sense Leibniz proclaimed that there was no such thing as space as a distinct entity.He postulated that there is no such thing as 'space' and only physical objects existed.He persistently criticised absolute space of Newton and held space and time to be relative(Not in the sense Einstein did) .Such a view appears contrary to common sense but philosophers never care much about common sense.Russell rightly called it 'mataphysics of savages'.

To put it simply,Leibniz was of the view that there was no such thing as space,only physical things exist in what we call 'space' but space doesn't exist as a distinct further kind of thing which contains objects.


There is an argument in favour of this theory from english grammar.Consider these two sentences,

1-There is water between chair and wall.
2-There is space between chair and wall.

From grammatical point of view these arguments are identical but there is something profoundly different from a logical point of view.The concept water and space differ remarkably from a logical view.The second sentence can be parapharased in this way,

3-There is nothing between the chair and wall,and chair isn't touching the wall.


In this sentence the talk of space has dropped altogether ,no such paraphrase is possible for sentence number 1.


Although this is all metaphysics but it shows the great rational mind of Leibniz ,no wonder Russell regarded him as having a great mind.