Space-time, detachment arguments, and two kinds of determinism

This video is part of the PROTEUS project that has received funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (Grant agreement No. 758145)

Abstract

Imagine the universe to have had a different orientation in space, or to have begun at a different moment in time. Have you imagined a coherent possibility? ‘Detachment arguments’ are ones which motivate a rejection of such apparent possibilities on the ground that the kind of difference they suppose would be undetectable and incapable of explanation. Leibniz offered detachment arguments against absolutism (or substantivalism) about space and time, and in favour of his relationist account. This paper suggests that detachment arguments (so conceived) involve an implicit appeal to a non-standard form of determinism, one we are under no pressure to accept.