Space Agnosticism as a Challenge to Modernity: a Comment on Jean Robert’s Article “Place in the Space Age”

Abstract

We could better characterise the so-called crisis of the West as a crisis of Modernity. To be even more precise, it would be a crisis of the Cartesian picture of the world. Swiss-Mexican philosopher Jean Robert suggests a way out of this crisis. By questioning the supposed apodicticity and universality of Cartesian space, he opens new horizons for philosophical and scientific studies. This article explains Robert’s space agnosticism: where it comes from, and where it leads. The main argument is that reconstructing a philosophical and scientific account based on the understanding of hyperbolic space, in substitution of Euclidean space, would give solid ground for true knowledge. In this way, we could recover the so-needed credibility and trust to live among each other and within nature.