Between Leibniz, Newton, and Kant

ISBN-13: 9783031343391 / Angielski / Twarda / 2023

Opis

It is a truism that philosophy and the sciences were closely linked in the age of Leibniz, Newton, and Kant; but a more precise determination of the structure and dynamics of this linkage is required. The subject matter of this volume is the interactions among the developments in philosophy and the transformations that the different branches of sciences, Baconian as well as classical, underwent during this period. Among the topics addressed are the transformations of metaphysics as a discipline, the emergence of analytical mechanics and its consequences for founding physics on metaphysics, the diverging avenues of 18th-century Newtonianism, the body-mind problem as dealt with by philosophers and physicians, and philosophical principles of classification in the life sciences. As an appendix, a critical edition and first translation into English of Newton's scholia from David Gregory's Estate on the Propositions IV through IX Book III of his Principia is added.

Spis treści

Introduction; W. Lefèvre. Part One: Siesmic Vibrations in Metaphysics. 1. Disciplinary Transformations in the Age of Newton: The Case of Metaphysics; A. Gabbey. Part Two: Metaphysics and the Analytical Method. 2. Leibniz' Concept of Possible Worlds and the Analysis of Motion in Eighteenth-Century Physics; H. Hecht. 3. The Limits of Intelligibility: The Status of Physical Sciences in d'Alemberts Philosophy; F. De Gandt. 4. Order of Nature and Order of Science; H. Pulte. Part Three: Avenues of Newtonianism. 5. Samuel Clarke's Annotations in Jacques Rohault's Traité de Physique, and How They Contributed to Popularising Newton's Physics; V. Schüller. 6. Kant on Extension and Force: Critical Appropriations of Leibniz and Newton; E. Watkins. 7. Enlightenment Scotland's Philosophico-Chemical Physics; D. Wilson. Part Four: Can Matter Think? 8. Materialistic Theories of Mind and Brain; A. Thomson. 9. Kant's Second Paralogism in Context: The Critique of Pure Reason on Whether Matter Can Think; F. Wunderlich. Part Five: Metaphysics and Natural History. 10. Natural or Artificial Systems? The Eighteenth-Century Controversy on Classification of Animals and Plants and its Philosophical Contexts; W. Lefèvre. Appendices.

O autorze

Wolfgang Lefèvre taught philosophy in connection with history of science at the Freie Universität Berlin. Since 1994 Senior Scholar and now Emeritus scholar at the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, Berlin. His research is focused on the interrelations of technological and scientific knowledge in the early modern period. Recent publication: »Minerva meets Vulcan: Scientific and Technological Literature – 1450-1750 (2021).

Blurb

This extended new edition offers a multifaceted insight into a period of intellectual history in the West in which the balance between speculative theories and experiential science was reset. As is well known, the interrelationship between philosophy and science underwent a profound change in the early modern period, in the course of which the sciences freed themselves from the conceptual framework of traditional metaphysics. The contributions of the volume focus on the eighteenth century, the critical and quite contradictory final phase of this process.

The volume distinguishes itself by tracing this transition process not only in the obvious case of the new mechanics - Newtonianism and analytic mechanics - but also by addressing new speculative philosophies of nature - early modern atomism or imponderable physics - and new metaphysical controversies such as the body-mind problem (Can matter think?) as well as developments in special scientific fields such as cosmology/astronomy and natural history.

The volume is written by historians of philosophy and the sciences of the early modern period and is intended primarily for specialists and students in these fields of knowledge. However, it is certainly also interesting and useful for cultural historians working on this period.