In this thesis I trace the relations between thinking about space and the spatiality of thought as it relates to epistemology in the eponymous authors. I argue that the verbal,visual, and mental tools used to negotiate the ideas and objects under consideration are not merely representative or rhetorical, but are part of the process of knowledge-making itself. I contend that the spatialities of language, visual presentation, and mental image facilitate new ways of seeing and the exploring of previously invisible relationships. I show how the dynamic spatiality of the imagination is used for testing hypothesis, considering multiple points of view, accommodating uncertainties, and thinking about expansive ideas that push at (or exist beyond) the boundaries of the known or possible. In this way I offer new readings of key texts that foreground the inherent relativity of human experience, which I contend is at the heart of a scientific uncertainty found even in the new science that strove for objectivity. In four case studies I explore the elationship between external and internal space in the thinking and perceiving subject, building on Steven Connor's assertion that ‘thinking about things is unavoidably a kind of thinking about the kind of thing that thinking is' (‘Thinking Things', 2010). In addition to this unidirectional relation between thinking and things, I demonstrate a complex dialogue between interior (thought) and exterior (thing) that occurs in the ways processes of thought and perception are externalized on the page and with instruments of viewing; in the way objects are brought into the mind; and in the way the mind creates infinities within by tracing expansive external spatialities.

Western science claims to provide unique, objective information about the world. This is supported by the observation that peoples across cultures will agree upon a common description of the physical world. Further, the use of scientific instruments and mathematics is claimed to enable the objectification of science. In this work, carried out by reviewing the scientific literature, the above claims are disputed systematically by evaluating the definition of physical reality and the scientific method, showing that empiricism relies ultimately upon the human senses for the evaluation of scientific theories and that measuring instruments cannot replace the human sensory system. Nativist and constructivist theories of human sensory development are reviewed, and it is shown that nativist claims of core conceptual knowledge cannot be supported by the findings in the literature, which shows that perception does not simply arise from a process of maturation. Instead, sensory function requires a long process of learning through interactions with the environment. To more rigorously define physical reality and systematically evaluate the stability of perception, and thus the basis of empiricism, the development of the method of dimension analysis is reviewed. It is shown that this methodology, relied upon for the mathematical analysis of physical quantities, is itself based upon empiricism, and that all of physical reality can be described in terms of the three fundamental dimensions of mass, length and time. Hereafter the sensory modalities that inform us about these three dimensions are systematically evaluated. The following careful analysis of neuronal plasticity in these modalities shows that all the relevant senses acquire from the environment the capacity to apprehend physical reality. It is concluded that physical reality is acquired rather than given innately, and leads to the position that science cannot provide unique results. Rather, those it can provide are sufficient for a particular environmental setting.