The Extensive Continuum versus the “Extensive Dis-Continuum” in Whitehead

In this article, I argue for the redundancy of Whitehead's Platonic notion of the extensive continuum, counterposing it to his related notion of an atomic “ether of events.” I argue that Whitehead's atomic ether is more compatible with orthodox general relativity than generally supposed an...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Process studies
Main Author: Schulz, Dwayne (Author)
Format: Electronic Article
Language:English
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Published: University of Illinois Press [2018]
In: Process studies
Standardized Subjects / Keyword chains:B Whitehead, Alfred North 1861-1947 / Object (Philosophy) / Continuity / Geometry / Abstraction
IxTheo Classification:TK Recent history
VA Philosophy
Online Access: Volltext (Verlag)
Volltext (doi)
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Summary:In this article, I argue for the redundancy of Whitehead's Platonic notion of the extensive continuum, counterposing it to his related notion of an atomic “ether of events.” I argue that Whitehead's atomic ether is more compatible with orthodox general relativity than generally supposed and remarkably close to the contemporary idea of a discrete manifold in the causal set theory of quantum gravity. I argue that the method of extensive abstraction complements Whitehead's atomic hypothesis by demonstrating the ultimately fictive nature of any continuum.
ISSN:2154-3682
Contains:Enthalten in: Process studies
Persistent identifiers:DOI: 10.5840/process2018471/21