Abstract

The author compares and evaluates four characterizations of spatio-temporal points, proposed by various modern ontologies of space-time, namely by set-theoretical substantivism and relationism on one hand, and by mereological substantivism in causal (exemplified by H. Field) or acauasal (exemplified by J. Jadacki) version, on the other hand. It is the question of properties (extension, localisation, causality, and individuality), and contexts (relation to moments or spatial points, and status in the theory of relativity), ascribed to spatio-temporal points in these ontologies. The detailed discussion of these solutions leads to the conclusion that the only ontology consistent with the modern physics as well as with some essential philosophical intuitions, is the ontology of relationism