Leibniz's Space and Time

"Although Leibniz continued to refine, develop, and extend his views on the laws of motion and impact, his work in the philosophy of physics was most prominently capped by his famous correspondence with Samuel Clarke — Newton's parish priest, intellectual disciple, and possible mouthpiece.^[10] The controversy began when the Princess of Wales passed along to Clarke in 1715 a letter written by Leibniz decrying the decline of religion in England inspired by the rise of Newton's natural philosophy. Taking place against the backdrop of a bitter dispute over the priority of the calculus, Clarke responded in Newton's defense and a series of five letters and replies were exchanged. Among the many topics covered in the correspondence, the letters are best known for the opposing views of space and time which they offer: Leibniz defending roughly the view that space is an ideal system of relations holding between bodies, and Clarke defending the view that space is something more like a container in which bodies are located and move. The increasingly detailed and pointed exchange ended only with Leibniz's death in 1716, with Clarke, in the historical sense at least, having the last word."


Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy