Newton as Philosopher

by Andrew Janiak

• ISBN13: 9780521172448
• ISBN10: 0521172446
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2010-09-09
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Summary

Newton's philosophical views are unique and uniquely difficult to categorise. In the course of a long career from the early 1670s until his death in 1727, he articulated profound responses to Cartesian natural philosophy and to the prevailing mechanical philosophy of his day. Newton as Philosopher presents Newton as an original and sophisticated contributor to natural philosophy, one who engaged with the principal ideas of his most important predecessor, Ren_ Descartes, and of his most influential critic, G. W. Leibniz. Unlike Descartes and Leibniz, Newton was systematic and philosophical without presenting a philosophical system, but over the course of his life, he developed a novel picture of nature, our place within it, and its relation to the creator. This rich treatment of his philosophical ideas, the first in English for thirty years, will be of wide interest to historians of philosophy, science, and ideas.

Table of Contents

Preface

Notes on text and translations

Newton as philosopher, the very idea

Physics and metaphysics: three interpretations

Do forces exist? Contesting the mechanical philosophy, I

Matter and mechanism: contesting the mechanical philosophy, II

Space in physics and metaphysics: contra Descartes

God and natural philosophy

Bibliography

Index

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