This is the second half of an essay which began in the last issue of Physics Essays. In the first half, a different topic was surveyed in each of the three sections: the conventionality of simultaneity, two paradigms of clocks and time, and how "relationalism" has been the subject of longstanding philosphical interest and disagreement.
Now, in the first section of Part 2, the focus shifts to rotational symmetry and its connection to distant simultaneity. A number of of fundamental results are derived from an argument that is partly physical and partly philosphical. This deeply rooted critique of current theory leads to a qualitative description of an alternate research program with close ties to historical efforts. An outline of the program gradually develops in the the final two sections. Supporting details are mixed with, and arise from, various additional arguments for the original thesis.
The main theme of the second section is an examination of the philosophical difficulties in the "local-distant" dichotomy. Other issues are gradually intertwined and developed.
Section 3 is a concluding survey and summary which brings together historical and contemporary issues and maintains that the difficulties in both may spring from a common cause: the problem in the theoretical foundation disclosed by the rotational symmetry argument. (Physics Essays: 1, no. 4, pp. 213-243)
