Space and Time in Isaac Barrow

This chapter explores Isaac Barrow’s account of time and space. Barrow’s account is important, partly because it is often argued to be one of the sources that Newton drew on in constructing his absolutism. Although Barrow is usually read as a pre-Newtonian absolutist, this chapter argues that Barrow is in fact a modal relationist, identifying space and time with the relational modes of bodies. This new reading entails that Barrow’s account of time may not have played as large a role in the development of Newton’s work as has been thought, but it also raises the possibility that Leibniz drew on Barrow’s relationism.