Time for Empiricist Metaphysics

Abstract

At the beginning of Newton’s Principia there is a famous scholium where he discusses time, space, place and motion using three distinctions: absolute and relative; true and apparent; mathematical and common. I discuss these three distinctions for the case of time, arguing for their significance for the metaphysics of time, and for the claim that Newton’s empirical methods reach deeply into metaphysical questions concerning the nature and structure of time. I suggest that this example provides important lessons for how philosophers should approach the relationship between metaphysics and empirical science.