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Space, Time and Deity: The Gifford Lectures at Glasgow Part One
This scarce antiquarian book is a facsimile reprint of the original. Due to its age, it may contain imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed pages. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment for protecting, preserving, and promoting the world's literature in affordable, high quality, modern editions that are true to the original work.
- GenresPhilosophy
396 pages, Paperback
First published March 1, 2004
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Samuel Alexander
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Samuel Alexander OM (1859–1938) was an Australian-born British philosopher. He was the first Jewish fellow of an Oxbridge college. Two key concepts for Alexander are those of an "emergent quality" and the idea of emergent evolution.
Samuel Alexander OM (1859–1938) was an Australian-born British philosopher. He was the first Jewish fellow of an Oxbridge college. Two key concepts for Alexander are those of an "emergent quality" and the idea of emergent evolution.
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June 4, 2024
A “CLASSIC” OF CONTEMPORARY SPECULATIVE METAPHYSICS
Samuel Alexander (1859–1938) was an Australian-born British philosopher; he was also the first Jewish fellow of an Oxbridge college. This book was first published in 1920. [NOTE: the page numbers below refer to a 114-page edition.]
He notes, “Object is, in fact, a question-begging word. It implies a subject. A table cannot be an object to my mind unless there is a mind, to which it is an object. It must be selected for contemplation. It cannot be known without a mind to know. But how much does it owe to that mind? Merely that it is known, but neither its qualities as known nor its existence. We there cannot conclude legitimately from the obvious truth that an object would not be perceived without a percipient, that it owes its being and character to that percipient.” (Pg. 4) He adds, “Whatever else the evidence entitles us to say of the mind, its connection with mental acts must be as intimate as the connection of any substance with its functions, and it cannot be such as to allow the mind to look on, as it were, from the outside and contemplate its own passing states.” (Pg. 5)
He suggests, “Space and Time are related to each other. These are often thought… to be independent and separate… But a little reflective consideration is sufficient to show that they are interdependent, so that there neither is Space without Time nor Time without Space, any more than life exists without a body or a body which can function as a living body exists without life; that Space is in its very nature temporal and Time spatial. The most important requirement for this analysis is to realize vividly the nature of Time as empirically given as a succession within duration. We are, as it were, to think ourselves into Time. I call this taking Time seriously.” (Pg. 12)
He argues, “we do not necessarily refer the consciousness always to the place of the body, we may refer the body to the consciousness as being in part of it in the same place. Here too we have a parallel in external experience. Pain in the toe is an organic sensum and the toe itself is seen… Now the pain, though sensum and not a mere feeling of painfulness, is notwithstanding more personal, nearer to mind than the seen toe. It is but a step from this to identifying the seen space of part of the body with the enjoyed space of the mind. Mental events and bodily events are thus realized, to belong to one place, and we may add by similar considerations, roughly speaking, to one time. Mind and body are EXPERIENTIALLY one thing, not two altogether separate things, because they occupy the same extension and places as a part of the body.” (Pg. 34)
He states, “The mathematical notion of continuity contains no dreaded infinite regress; the infinitude is of the essence of the datum and expresses no repetition of steps upon our part… The answer, if I am right, must be that points are continuous because they are not mere points but are instants as well. It is time which distinguishes one point from another, but it is Time also which connects them. For the point is never really at rest but only a transition in a motion.” (Pg. 48)
He notes, “The continuity of Space-Time is something primordial and given in experience. When it is described in conceptual terms as the continuous relation of point-instants it is described in terms derived from finite complexes or things, just in the same way as we apply the conception of causality in physical events to mental events though we are familiar with the causal experience first in mental life. Thus there is no circularity … in explaining relation by continuity of Space-Time. It is a certain determination of Space-Time, afterwards known as its continuity, in virtue of which existents are related to one another. Not all relations of existents are in their immediate character or quality spatio-temporal; but if our hypothesis is sound they are always spatio-temporal in their simplest expression.” (Pg. 78)
He states, “if Space is the very being of Time, Space sustains Time as it fades into the past or dawns into the future… Space gives to Time its continuity as Time gives to Space its continuity. Space enables Time to be Time, that is a duration of succession. Any relation between moments of time is then a piece of Time itself, and duration is not a relation of the timeless but of the timeful; and while duration is made of the instants it connects, these instants are connected by duration. For the relation and the terms are of the same stuff.” (Pg. 85)
He observes, “The popular notion of a cause as a thing is inadequate, for a thing can only be a cause in respect of the events in which it is concerned. On the other hand, the logical notion of causality as a connection of events is inadequate so long as an event is regarded as an isolated occurrence and not as a process which if the event is a cause is continued into the event which is its effect. With such static or statuesque isolation of its events the causal relation is a piece of philosophical mythology.” (Pg. 91)
He says, “thus Space-Time, the universe in its primordial form, is the stuff out ow which all existents are made. It is Space-Time with the characters which we have found it to reveal to experience. But it has no ‘quality’ save that of being spatio-temporal or motion. All the wealth of qualities which makes things precious to us belongs to existents which grow within it, and which are in the first instance characterized by the categories. It is greater than all existent finites or infinites because it is their parent. But it has not as Space-Time their wealth of qualities, and being elementary in so far less than they are.” (Pg. 111)
He adds, “For it is clear that Space-Time takes for us the place of what is called the Absolute in idealistic systems. It is an experiential absolute. All finites being complexes of spacetime are incomplete. They are not the sum of reality. That could happen only if the real in which they are absorbed were of a different stuff from themselves. But to be a complex of space-time is to be of the stuff of which the universe consists.” (Pg. 112)
This book will be of great interest to those interested in Idealism and Metaphysics.
Samuel Alexander (1859–1938) was an Australian-born British philosopher; he was also the first Jewish fellow of an Oxbridge college. This book was first published in 1920. [NOTE: the page numbers below refer to a 114-page edition.]
He notes, “Object is, in fact, a question-begging word. It implies a subject. A table cannot be an object to my mind unless there is a mind, to which it is an object. It must be selected for contemplation. It cannot be known without a mind to know. But how much does it owe to that mind? Merely that it is known, but neither its qualities as known nor its existence. We there cannot conclude legitimately from the obvious truth that an object would not be perceived without a percipient, that it owes its being and character to that percipient.” (Pg. 4) He adds, “Whatever else the evidence entitles us to say of the mind, its connection with mental acts must be as intimate as the connection of any substance with its functions, and it cannot be such as to allow the mind to look on, as it were, from the outside and contemplate its own passing states.” (Pg. 5)
He suggests, “Space and Time are related to each other. These are often thought… to be independent and separate… But a little reflective consideration is sufficient to show that they are interdependent, so that there neither is Space without Time nor Time without Space, any more than life exists without a body or a body which can function as a living body exists without life; that Space is in its very nature temporal and Time spatial. The most important requirement for this analysis is to realize vividly the nature of Time as empirically given as a succession within duration. We are, as it were, to think ourselves into Time. I call this taking Time seriously.” (Pg. 12)
He argues, “we do not necessarily refer the consciousness always to the place of the body, we may refer the body to the consciousness as being in part of it in the same place. Here too we have a parallel in external experience. Pain in the toe is an organic sensum and the toe itself is seen… Now the pain, though sensum and not a mere feeling of painfulness, is notwithstanding more personal, nearer to mind than the seen toe. It is but a step from this to identifying the seen space of part of the body with the enjoyed space of the mind. Mental events and bodily events are thus realized, to belong to one place, and we may add by similar considerations, roughly speaking, to one time. Mind and body are EXPERIENTIALLY one thing, not two altogether separate things, because they occupy the same extension and places as a part of the body.” (Pg. 34)
He states, “The mathematical notion of continuity contains no dreaded infinite regress; the infinitude is of the essence of the datum and expresses no repetition of steps upon our part… The answer, if I am right, must be that points are continuous because they are not mere points but are instants as well. It is time which distinguishes one point from another, but it is Time also which connects them. For the point is never really at rest but only a transition in a motion.” (Pg. 48)
He notes, “The continuity of Space-Time is something primordial and given in experience. When it is described in conceptual terms as the continuous relation of point-instants it is described in terms derived from finite complexes or things, just in the same way as we apply the conception of causality in physical events to mental events though we are familiar with the causal experience first in mental life. Thus there is no circularity … in explaining relation by continuity of Space-Time. It is a certain determination of Space-Time, afterwards known as its continuity, in virtue of which existents are related to one another. Not all relations of existents are in their immediate character or quality spatio-temporal; but if our hypothesis is sound they are always spatio-temporal in their simplest expression.” (Pg. 78)
He states, “if Space is the very being of Time, Space sustains Time as it fades into the past or dawns into the future… Space gives to Time its continuity as Time gives to Space its continuity. Space enables Time to be Time, that is a duration of succession. Any relation between moments of time is then a piece of Time itself, and duration is not a relation of the timeless but of the timeful; and while duration is made of the instants it connects, these instants are connected by duration. For the relation and the terms are of the same stuff.” (Pg. 85)
He observes, “The popular notion of a cause as a thing is inadequate, for a thing can only be a cause in respect of the events in which it is concerned. On the other hand, the logical notion of causality as a connection of events is inadequate so long as an event is regarded as an isolated occurrence and not as a process which if the event is a cause is continued into the event which is its effect. With such static or statuesque isolation of its events the causal relation is a piece of philosophical mythology.” (Pg. 91)
He says, “thus Space-Time, the universe in its primordial form, is the stuff out ow which all existents are made. It is Space-Time with the characters which we have found it to reveal to experience. But it has no ‘quality’ save that of being spatio-temporal or motion. All the wealth of qualities which makes things precious to us belongs to existents which grow within it, and which are in the first instance characterized by the categories. It is greater than all existent finites or infinites because it is their parent. But it has not as Space-Time their wealth of qualities, and being elementary in so far less than they are.” (Pg. 111)
He adds, “For it is clear that Space-Time takes for us the place of what is called the Absolute in idealistic systems. It is an experiential absolute. All finites being complexes of spacetime are incomplete. They are not the sum of reality. That could happen only if the real in which they are absorbed were of a different stuff from themselves. But to be a complex of space-time is to be of the stuff of which the universe consists.” (Pg. 112)
This book will be of great interest to those interested in Idealism and Metaphysics.
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September 5, 2025Held that thought is extended...will read it later.
December 8, 2008
Alexander uses the notion of 'emergent evolution' to explain the relation between different dimensions of reality.
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