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The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 2002 53(2):183-204; doi:10.1093/bjps/53.2.183
© 2002 by British Society for the Philosophy of Science
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Relationalism Rehabilitated? I: Classical Mechanics

Oliver Pooley1 and Harvey R. Brown2

1 Exeter College, Oxford OX1 3DP, UK. oliver.pooley{at}philosophy.oxford.ac.uk 2 Faculty of Philosophy, University of Oxford, 10 Merton Street, Oxford OX1 4JJ, UK. harvey.brown{at}philosophy.oxford.ac.uk

The implications for the substantivalist–relationalist controversy of Barbour and Bertotti's successful implementation of a Machian approach to dynamics are investigated. It is argued that in the context of Newtonian mechanics, the Machian framework provides a genuinely relational interpretation of dynamics and that it is more explanatory than the conventional, substantival interpretation. In a companion paper (Pooley [2002a]), the viability of the Machian framework as an interpretation of relativistic physics is explored.

1 Introduction

2 Newton versus Leibniz

3 Absolute space versus an affine connection

4 Anti-relationalist arguments

5 Rehabilitating relationalism

6 Dynamics on the relative configuration space

7 Intrinsic particle dynamics

8 Conclusion


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