Space and time are the main categories of philosophy. Along with the concept of movement, they are directly related to the objective characteristics of being. The first ideas about the nature of time and space originated in antiquity, when a person experienced the world around him.
Instruction manual
1
In everyday life, a person understands space and time literally and intuitively, regardless of the philosophical content of these concepts. People from experience know that all material objects have physical dimensions and extent. The change of time of day and seasonal changes in nature have long indicated to man that all events have a certain duration.
2
With the advent and development of philosophical knowledge, the relationship to time and space began to change. Some thinkers, such as Epicurus and Democritus, considered these categories as an independent basis of being, which can exist independently of matter and outside it. These philosophers assumed that between matter, space and time there are the same relationships as between individual substances or elements.
3
Another point of view was held by Aristotle and Leibniz. These philosophers considered time and space as a single system of relations, in which they are determined by the interactions between the material objects that make up the world. Outside of such a system of interaction, space and time became empty abstractions that did not have independent content.
4
Space, if viewed from the perspective of modern science, is the structural characteristic of matter, the way and form of its existence. Space is a multidimensional category. The terms "extension" and "infinity" are often used in relation to it. In philosophy, the category of space makes sense only to the extent that the material world can be structured.
5
Time is another form of being of matter. It appears in philosophy as a way by which material objects and phenomena can change. The terms “duration”, “flow”, “move”, “past”, “present” and “future” are widely used to describe the category of time. Modern physical and philosophical knowledge suggests that time has the properties of directionality and irreversibility.
6
The introduction of the theory of relativity proposed by Albert Einstein into science made it possible to clarify the content of the philosophical categories of time and space. It turned out that they are inextricably linked both with each other and with the continuous movement of matter, forming a single and indivisible space-time continuum. According to the conclusions of the theory of relativity, time and space can exist only as attributes of the material world, and their characteristics are determined by the forces of gravity.
