This hybrid talk will take place in Room Multiuso, Faculty of Theology Building (USI West Campus) and online via Zoom. If you are interested in joining online, please write to events.isfi@usi.ch.  

Here is the abstract of the talk:  

Does space or spacetime exist? Substantivalists say yes. Spacetime is an arena in which material objects are located and interact with each other. Relationists say no. Spacetime is nothing over and above a network of spatial relations between material objects. As pointed out by (Horwich 1978), (Field 1984) and others, relationism is at odds with our best physical theories: on the face of it, we can’t do physics without positing substantival space or spacetime. Relationists are therefore faced with the challenge of reformulating our best physical theories without quantifying over regions, points and the like. A natural reaction for a relationist is to try to meet this challenge by using the notion of possibility. In this talk, I will discuss three approaches to modal relationism and argue that they are all unsatisfactory.  

For more information: https://www.ftl.usi.ch/it/feeds/14780