Time&Eternity

notes to chapter 3 287
106. Gerhardt, Die philosophischen Schriften, 402f., sec. 49: “l’un [space] est aussi ideal
que l’autre [time].”
107. Gerhardt, Die philosophischen Schriften, 415, L v, sec. 104: “.l.l. pour montrer
comment l’esprit vient à se former l’idée de l’Espace, sans qu’il faille qu’il y ait un Etre reel
et absolu, qui y réponde, hors de l’esprit et hors des rapports. Je ne dis donc point, que l’Espace
est un ordre ou situation, mais un ordre des situations.l.l.l. Ainsi c’est quelque chose
d’ideal .l.l.”; Alexander, ed., The Leibniz-Clarke Correspondence, 89: “.l.l. the mind comes
to form to itself an idea of space, and yet that there need not be any real and absolute being
answering to that idea, distinct from the mind, and from all relations.l.l.l. Space is
therefore something [merely] ideal.”
108. Gerhardt, Die philosophischen Schriften, 415, L v, sec. 106. Gerhardt: “S’il n’y avoit
point de creatures, il n’y auroit ny temps ny lieu; et par consequent point d’espace
actuel.l.l.l. Ainsi je n’admets point ce qu’on avance icy, que si Dieu seul existoit, il y auroit
temps et espace, comme à present. Au lieu qu’alors, à mon avis, ils ne seroient que dans les
idées, comme les simples possibilités.”
109. Alexander, ed., The Leibniz-Clarke Correspondence, 104, C v sec. 45: “And when,
according to the analogy of vulgar speech, we say that he exists in all space and in all time;
the words mean only that he is omnipresent and eternal, that is, that boundless space and
time are necessary consequences of his existence; and not, that space and time are beings
distinct from him, and IN which he exists.”
110. Thus, for example, von Weizsäcker, Zeit und Wissen, 354, Coveney and Highfield,
The Arrow of Time, 39. Around two hundred years later, John C. Squire (1884–1958) added:
“It did not last: the devil howling Ho, / Let Einstein be, restored the status quo” (according
to Coveney and Highfield, The Arrow of Time, 68).
111. See pp. 41–44, 65–80.
112. Cf. pp. 37–44.
113. Alexander, ed., The Leibniz-Clarke Correspondence, 166f. (General Scholium).
114. Ibid., L v, sec. 72, 80; cf. Gerhardt, Die philosophischen Schriften, 408, “determiné
par des raisons internes.”
115. Jüngel, Gott als Geheimnis der Welt, 36–43; trans., God as the Mystery of the World,
29–34.
116. One should note in this regard that Newton’s concept of God is basically less static
than that of Descartes. Whereas Descartes considers God’s unchangeability to be central
as the guarantee for the cognition processes within a mechanistic explanation of the world,
Newton allows God to exert influence on world events by making God—though in untenable
manner, as would soon be shown—responsible for the stability of the planetary system,
for the “winding of the world’s clock,” and for occasional corrections.
117. Alexander, ed., The Leibniz-Clarke Correspondence, 168 (General Scholium); Newton,
Isaac Newton’s Philosophiae Naturalis, ii, 762: “Deus nihil patitur .l.l.”
118. Alexander, ed., The Leibniz-Clarke Correspondence, xl–lv, offers a summary of the
most important positions in the discussion of time and space extending from Leibniz to
Kant and also including Mach and Einstein.
119. On this, cf. Manzke, Ewigkeit und Zeitlichkeit, 85–160, who presents the developmental
stages of Kant’s theory of time in detail primarily using the Inaugural Dissertation
from 1770 and the Kritik der reinen Vernunft under the title “Die von der Relation zur
Ewigkeit ‘befreite’ Zeit” (Time “Liberated” from the Relation to Eternity).
120. “.l.l. eine notwendige Vorstellung, die allen Anschauungen zum Grunde liegt,”
Kant, Kritik der reinen Vernunft, B 46; trans., Critique of Pure Reason, 86.
121. Manzke, Ewigkeit und Zeitlichkeit, 55ff.
122. Alexander, ed., The Leibniz-Clarke Correspondence, xlvif.