"::Hmm...I think the difficulty is that in these arguments there are a lot of different issues.  For example, in the absolutism/relationalism stuff...the argument takes on a very specific tone in the primary texts that is pretty anachronistic (space as ""sensorium"" in Clarke's letters for example)  So, I suppose it's useful to put these things into a more analytic framework whereby the issues really are these two: 

 1. Is Space-time an object (instead of substance)? and 
 2. Are there ""facts of the matter"" concering spatio-temporal determinations (e.g. location)? 

 In general, then, an Idealist will certainly say no to (1), while it will depend what sort of anti-realism you subscribe to to know the answer to (1) (for example I think Putnam would say that spacetime is an object, per his system, but that VanFraassen would not). 

 But the answer to (2) is a bit complicated.  Leibniz, for example, although he didn't believe that spacetime was an object, does believe there are facts of the matter concerning the lengths of spatial intervals.  Conversely, Grunbaum, a realist about spacetime as an object, thought that all spatio-temporal determinations were conventional, i.e. set by some (arbitrary) co-ordinative definition.  To complicate matters again, Reichenbach held the self-same view about facts of the matter concerning spatiotemporal determinations, but was very much in the phenomenalist spirit of the positivists in general, and their neo-Kantian Plus view of the role of conceptualization in the setting of facts. 

 So I don't know, I get worried about the use of idealism and anti-realism in such close proximity to one another as they really are two different creatures.  Take for example the flow of time issue (I kind of short shrifted this section...should have said more probably).  Take the ""B-Theorist"" solution to Mctaggart's paradox.  On this view, the paradox doesn't arise because a) A-determinations can be reduced to B-determinations (via some ""token-reflexive account"" or what have you...where what ""It is raining now"" comes out to / has as truth conditions ""The tokening of 'It is raining now' is simultaneous with it raining"") and b) real change can be found in the B-series alone. 

 So, for a B-theorist the flow of time is merely a feature of our experience of time, not found in some objectively moving NOW.  Certainly we would call a b-theorist an anti-realist about the flow of time...but idealist?  I wouldn't think so...as they believe time (as the B-series) to be what it is independent of observers.  But again, to further muck up matters a B-theorist could still be a relationalist about spacetime (spacetime not an object but just a system of relations among events) and a conventionalist about spacetime determinations (e.g. lengths between objects). 
 Anyway, I'll stop typing now...Spacetimeguy 08:54, July 16, 2005 
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