2. Space is the boundless three-dimensional extent
in which objects and events have relative position
and direction. Physical space is often conceived in
three linear dimensions, although
modern physicists usually consider it, with time,
to be part of a boundless four-
dimensional continuum known as space time. The
concept of space is considered to be of
fundamental importance to an understanding of
the physical universe. However, disagreement
continues between philosophers over whether it is
itself an entity, a relationship between entities, or
part of a conceptual,
3. Debates concerning the nature, essence and the mode of existence
of space date back to antiquity; namely, to treatises like
the Timaeus of Plato, or Socrates in his reflections on what the
Greeks called khôra (i.e. "space"), or in
the Physics of Aristotle (Book IV, Delta) in the definition
of topos (i.e. place), or in the later "geometrical conception of place"
as "space qua extension" in the Discourse on Place (Qawl fi al-Makan)
of the 11th-century Arab polymath Alhazen.Many of these
classical philosophical questions were discussed in
the Renaissance and then reformulated in the 17th century,
particularly during the early development of classical mechanics.
In Isaac Newton's view, space was absolute—in the sense that it
existed permanently and independently of whether there was any
matter in the space. Other natural philosophers, notably Gottfried
Leibniz, thought instead that space was in fact a collection of
relations between objects, given by their distance and direction
from one another. In the 18th century, the philosopher and
theologian George Berkeley attempted to refute the "visibility of
spatial depth" in his Essay Towards a New Theory of Vision
4. . Later, the metaphysician Immanuel Kant said
that the concepts of space and time are not
empirical ones derived from experiences of the
outside world—they are elements of an already
given systematic framework that humans
possess and use to structure all experiences.
Kant referred to the experience of "space" in
his Critique of Pure Reason as being a subjective
"pure a priori form of intuition".