Yet if Leibniz thinks that space is a relational order, that relations are mind-dependent, and that our <space>confused is dependent upon sense perception, is he committed to the idea that space itself is somehow dependent upon sense perception?
For as we have seen, Leibniz does not think that space is real in the sense of being independent of the mind per se; space is a relational order and relations are dependent on "the understanding".
When we focus on our <space>clear & distinct, we find that space is represented as a relational order, and as we have seen, those relations are dependent upon the understanding.
This may suggest that when we consider space through the lens of the understanding when we focus on our <space>clear & distinct we find that space is a relational order that depends upon the understanding because it depends upon relations, which in turn are "added" by the understanding to the objects that exist.
In particular he has advanced the suspicion that his approach is circular, since it ultimately appeals to a relation, mutual substitution, in a way that involves an unexplained appeal to relational order (but see Fine 2007 for a reply and Leo 2008 for an exploration of the formal details of Fine's approach).
In particular, it favours the examination of the topological configuration of space; that is, the arrangement of its constitutive elements into a relational order.
It is a precarious process of stabilising the relational order.
Such states of affairs are often said to differ in 'relational order' and the problem then is that of characterizing what this relational order amounts to.
Instead, the correct view of the origin of our representation of space ought to presuppose that space is merely a relational order, and ought to be able to explain that origin while making that presupposition, despite the fact that the representation itself represents space as something other than a relational order.
One might respond, in the case of pitch and other sensible features that can be put in a linear ordering, that the relational order is essential, while the magnitudes are not.
One might think our confused representation of space represents space as a kind of independent entity, and not as a relational order, since for Leibniz, the ordinary conception is mistaken in its portrayal of space as a kind of quasi-entity.
