Newton's Physics and the Conceptual Structure of the Scientific Revolution

ISBN-13: 9789401054461 / Angielski / Miękka / 2012 / 588 str.

Z. Bechler

Opis

Three events, which happened all within the same week some ten years ago, set me on the track which the book describes. The first was a reading of Emile Meyerson works in the course of a prolonged research on Einstein's relativity theory, which sent me back to Meyerson's Ident- ity and Reality, where I read and reread the striking chapter on "Ir- rationality". In my earlier researches into the origins of French Conven- tionalism I came to know similar views, all apparently deriving from Emile Boutroux's doctoral thesis of 1874 De fa contingence des lois de la nature and his notes of the 1892-3 course he taught at the Sorbonne De ['idee de fa loi naturelle dans la science et la philosophie contempo- raines. But never before was the full effect of the argument so suddenly clear as when I read Meyerson. On the same week I read, by sheer accident, Ernest Moody's two- parts paper in the JHIof 1951, "Galileo and Avempace". Put near Meyerson's thesis, what Moody argued was a striking confirmation: it was the sheer irrationality of the Platonic tradition, leading from A vem- pace to Galileo, which was the working conceptual force behind the notion of a non-appearing nature, active all the time but always sub- merged, as it is embodied in the concept of void and motion in it.

Spis treści

I: The Tradition.- One: Aristotelian and Platonic Conceptions of Explanation.- 1. Introduction.- 2. Aristotle’s Notorious Blunder.- 3. The Accepted Explanation and its Distortion of Aristotle’s Physics.- 4. The Accepted Explanation and the Dissolution of the Scientific Revolution.- 5. The Essence of the Scientific Revolution.- 6. Informative and Non-Informative Concepts of Explanation.- 7. The Irrationality of Informative Explanation.- 8. The Rationality of Non-Informative Explanation: Aristotle’s Example.- 9. Some Paradoxes of the New Empiricism: Forces, God, Souls and Space and Time.- 10. The Place of God in Informative Science.- 11. The Place of Spirit in Informative Science.- 12. Absoluteness of Space and Time in Informative Science.- Two: Aristotle’s Philosophy of Nature and Theory of Potentiality.- 1. The Two Potentialities.- 2. The Nature of Consistency Potentiality.- 3. The Nature of Genuine Potentiality.- 4. The Nullity of Potentiality.- 5. Potentiality, Lack and the Coincidental.- 6. The Priority of the Actual.- 7. The Rationality of Genuine Potentiality.- 8. Potentiality and the Theory of Motion.- 9. “Form” is not “Another” and Cannot Be Moved by Another.- 10. What, Then, Moves the Five Elements?.- 11. Can Potentiality Be the Mover?.- 12. The Ontology of the Two Potentialities in Action.- 13. First Movers and the Physics.- 14. The Ontology of the Syllogism.- 15. The Physics of the Syllogism.- 16. The Potentiality of the Infinite and the Non-Informativity of Mathematics.- Three: Plato’s Concept of the Actual and His Philosophy of Nature.- 1. Socrates’ Search for Scientific Explanation.- 1.1. Socrates’ Puzzles and his View of Explanation.- 1.2. Socrates’ Attack on Anaxagoras.- 1.3. The Informativity of the Forms.- 1.4. Teleology and Aristotle’s Critique of Plato’s Forms.- 2. Causality, Invisibility and Plato’s Informative Explanation.- 2.1. Explanation and the Invisibility of Real Causes.- 2.2. Mixture, Necessity and the New Explanation.- 2.3. Soul, Motion and Medial Entities.- 2.4. Medial Entities, Bastard Knowledge and the Inherence of Paradox.- 2.5. Circular Reasoning and the Discovery of Bastard Knowledge.- II: The Logical Revolution.- Four: The Copernican Harmony.- 1. Copernicus’ Harmony and the Copernican Revolution.- 2. The Monster: Ptolemaic Astronomy.- 3. Regularities and Regularities of Regularities.- 4. Error and Hypothesis: The Platonic Connection.- 5. Copernicus’ Harmony.- 6. Harmony and the Informativity of Copernicus’ Astronomy.- Five: Bacon’s Informative Logic.- 1. Inductive Logic and Informativity.- 2. The Meaning of Forms.- 3. Latent Configuration and Latent Process.- 4. Prediction and Informativity.- 5. Bacon’s Platonism and Final Circularity.- Six: Informativity and Paradox: Galileo’s Conception of the Nature of Physical Reality.- 1. Galileo’s Method and his Fallacia Consequentis.- 2. Ex Suppositione Argument as Demonstrative: Free Fall and Parabolic Motion.- 3. Attempts to Rescue Galileo: (1) Wallace.- 4. Attempts to Rescue Galileo: (2) Wisan.- 5. The Solution: When do Phenomena Entail their Hidden Essentia?.- 6. The Ontology of the Zero and the Void: The Clash with Aristotle.- 7. Galileo’s Platonic Ontology: the Actuality of the Potential, the Nature of the Resultant, and the “Book of Nature”.- 8. Galileo on the Actual Infinite and the Method of Paradox.- 9. The Structure of Acceleration.- 10. Koyré’s Conception of Platonism and Galileo’s Inertial Motion.- 11. Galileo’s Conception of Inertial Motion.- 12. Galileo’s Concept of Permanent Impetus.- 13. Galileo’s Rejection of Natural Motion.- 14. Galileo’s Inertial Motion as a Process.- 15. Galileo’s Circular Arguments.- 16. Attempts to Rescue Galileo: (3) Drake and Mertz.- 17. Limbo Entities, Mixed Science, and Circularity.- Seven: Descartes’ Informative Logic.- 1. Descartes’ Conception of Deduction.- 2. Descartes’ Logical Revolt and the Cogito.- 3. Two Novel Circularities?.- 4. Distinctness, Adequacy and Completeness — Circularity is Definitely In.- 5. Descartes’ Ontology of Essences: Dispute Against the Nominalists.- 6. The Inevitability of Separate Essences in Descartes’s Ontology.- 7. Cartesian Platonism: A Note on Malebranche’s Interpretation of Descartes.- 8. Cartesian Orthodoxy — Arnauld’s Interpretation and its Failure.- 9. The Absoluteness of Motion and of Conatus.- 10. The Internality of Conatus and its Counteractuality.- 11. Motion and Shape as Modes and the Essence of Matter.- 12. The Identity of Motion: Extension and the Absoluteness of Motion.- 13. Why is Motion a “Mere Mode”?.- 14. The Paradoxality of Motion.- 15. The Invisibility of Nature, Law and the Conservation of State.- 16. Inertia, State and Existence in an Instant.- 17. Inertial Motion as an Actual Potentiality.- 18. Componential vs. Resultant Entities.- 19. The Nature of Time and the Principle of Inertia.- 20. The Paradox of Analysis.- 21. Informativity and the Heterogeneity of Analysis and Synthesis.- 22. Informativity and Causality.- 23. Informativity and Circularity.- III: Newton’s Physics and its Critics.- Eight: Actual Infinity and Newton’s Calculus.- 1. The Platonic Presuppositions of Newton’s Limit Theory.- 2. The Aristotelian Character of Greek Exhaustion Theory.- 3. The “Ultimate Ratio” as a New Category of Existence.- 4. The Structure of a Point: Process during an Instant and the Infinitesimal Nature of the Limit.- 5. Newton’s Implicit Acceptance of the Infinitesimal and his Explicit Acceptance of Actual Infinity.- Nine: Newton’s Logic of Space and Time.- 1. Newton’s Principle of the Distinctness of Indiscernibles.- 2. The Actuality of Space and its Medial Ontology.- 3. The Actuality of Geometric Forms in Space.- 4. The Platonic Logic of Newton’s Inertial Motion.- Ten: Modern Newtonian Historiography and the Puzzle of Newton’s Absolute Space.- 1. The Aristotelian Foundation of Westfall’s Interpretation of Newton.- 2. The Aristotelian Foundation of Herivel’s Interpretation.- 3. The Aristotelian Foundation of Cohen’s Interpretation.- 4. Cohen’s Concept of “Newtonian Style”.- Eleven: Absolute Motion and the Nature of Inertial Forces.- 1. Newton’s Bucket is Not an Attempt to Prove the Reality of Motion or of Space.- 2. The Bucket Intends to Prove that Absolute Motion Can Be Observed Even in a Single Body.- 3. The Bucket Presupposes Absolute Form and Space.- 4. The “Effects” of Motion and Newton’s Inertial Forces.- 5. The Distinctness of Inertial Force from Body and from Motion.- 6. The Splitting of the Force of Inertia.- 7. Curved Motion as an Equilibrium.- 8. Inertial Force as a Causal Agent and the Transformation of Internal and External Forces.- 9. The Laws of Motion and the Classification of Forces.- 10. Inertial Force as Cause and the Mechanism of Inertial Deformation.- 11. Force and Essence: The Separability of Inertial Force.- 12. Two Kinds of Essentiality and the Bentley Correspondence.- 13. Primary, Essential and Universal Forces.- 14. Inertial Force as a Force at a Distance.- Twelve: Locke and the Meaning of “Empiricism”.- 1. Locke’s Conception of Essence.- 2. Locke on the Impossibility of Real Science and the Existence of Necessary Yet Informative Truths.- 3. Locke’s So Called Empiricism and God’s Superaddition.- 4. The Merge of Logic and Physics.- 5. Association of Ideas and Inconceivability.- 6. Inconceivability and the Necessity of Mathematical Truths.- 7. The Necessity of Essential Links.- 8. Locke’s Presupposition of Inborn Associations.- Thirteen: Newton’s Invention of the Problem of Induction.- 1. The Triviality of the Problem of Induction.- 2. Newton’s Abolishment of the Hypothetico-Deductive Method.- 3. The Search for an Uncertainty Element: Correspondence with Cotes and the First Appearance of the Problem of Induction.- 4. “If Cotes Had Lived” Cotes’ Preface 1713.- 5. The Conceptual Content of Law III and the Logic of its Applicability.- 6. Some Modern Attitudes to the Cotes Affair.- 7. The Emergence of Restricted Universality: The Leibniz-Clarke Dispute 1715-6.- 8. The Final Resolution: The Uncertainty of Future Exceptions — the 1717 Opticks and the 1726 Principia.- 9. The Meaning and Role of the Fourth Rule of Philosophising, 1726.- 10. Platonic and Aristotelian Problems of Induction.- Fourteen: Circularity and Newton’s Philosophy of Nature.- 1. The Duhem-Popper Argument and Other Puzzles.- 1.1. The Importance of Duhem’s Arguments.- 1.2. A Scheme of Newton’s Derivation in the Principia and the Formal Arguments of Duhem and Popper.- 1.3. Three New Puzzles and the Letter to Halley.- 1.4. Split Reference and a Primary Interpretation of the Halley Letter.- 1.5. Splitting the Unobserved Reality Realm: Componential and Resultant Denotations in the Principia Proofs and Further Interpretation of the Halley Letter.- 1.6. Resolution of the Irrationality Puzzle: The Different Referential Import of the Premises and Consequences of the Principia, and the Double Functionality of the Premises.- 1.7. Resolution of the Second Puzzle by the Double Function of the Premises: In What Sense Newton Did Not Guess Kepler’s Ellipse.- 1.8. Some Further Textual Evidence.- 2. The Vicious Circle Principle of Newton’s Physics, and the Empirical Philosophy of the Scientific Revolution.- 2.1. Summary and Introduction to the Vicious Circle Argument: The First Example: Kepler Motion.- 2.2. The Second Example of Circular Proof: The Inverse Square Law.- 2.3. The Third Example of Circular Proof: Absolute Space.- 2.4. The Fourth Example of Circular Proof: The Copernican System.- 2.5. The Fifth Example of Circular Proof: The Sine Law for Monochromatic Light.- 2.6. The First Critique of Newton’s Circular Argument: George Gordon.- 2.7. Circularity and Deviant Logic.- Fifteen: Leibniz’s Aristotelian Philosophy of Nature.- 1. Equivalent Explanations and the Nature of Forces.- 2. Leibniz’ Aristotelian Theory of Space and Time.- 3. The Identity of the Subject and its Predicate-Sequence.- 4. Divine Conceptualism.- 5. The Sea-Battle and Leibniz' Apologetics.- 6. Entelechies, Souls, Natures and Analyticity.- 7. Leibniz’ Response to the Platonic Attacks and the Aristotelian Structure of the Theodicy Apology.- 8. Natural Motion and the Automaton.- 9. Leibniz’ Aristotelianism and his Critique of Gravitation.- 10. Leibniz’ Concept of Actual Infinity.- 11. Equivalence and Leibniz’s Conventionalism.- Sixteen: Berkeley’s Aristotelian Critique of Newton’s Physics.- 1. Berkeley’s Aristotelian Critique of the Calculus.- 2. Berkeley’s Aristotelian Foundation for the Calculus: (1) The Compensation of Errors.- 3. Berkeley’s Aristotelian Foundation for the Calculus: (2) The Analytico-Geometrical Equation.- 4. The Ineffectivity of Berkeley’s Critique.- 5. Berkeley’s Rejection of Heterogeneous Ratios and the Critique of Fluxions.- 6. Berkeley’s Late Critique of Newtonian Forces as Potentialities and his Identification of Force and Motion.- 7. Berkeley’s Non-Dynamic Conception of Nature.- 8. Berkeley’s Ontology and his View of Scientific Explanation.- 9. The Failure of Berkeley’s Relativism.- Epilogue.- Appendix: Some Basic Ideas in Newton’s Physics.- Notes.