•  9
    Isaac Newton did more than any other early modern figure to revolutionize natural philosophy, but he was often wary of other aspects of philosophy. He had an especially vexed relationship with metaphysics. As recent scholarship has highlighted, he often denounced metaphysical discussions, especially those in the Scholastic tradition (Levitin 2016). He insisted that he himself was not engaging with the aspect of philosophy that played such a prominent role in the work of his predecessors, especia…Read more
  •  1
    Newton
    Wiley & Sons. 2015.
    This book takes a distinct angle on his life and work.
  •  10
    What was 'Newtonianism' in Enlightenment Europe?
    Centaurus 64 (4): 941-946. 2022.
  •  1
    Physics and metaphysics in Descartes and Newton
    In Steven Nadler, Tad M. Schmaltz & Delphine Antoine-Mahut (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Descartes and Cartesianism, Oxford University Press. 2019.
  •  13
    Space: a history (edited book)
    Oxford University Press. 2020.
    This volume chronicles the development of philosophical conceptions of space from early antiquity through the medieval period to the early modern era, ending with Kant. The chapters describe the interactions at different moments in history between philosophy and various other disciplines, especially geometry, optics, and natural science more generally. Central figures from the history of mathematics, science and philosophy are discussed, including Euclid, Plato, Aristotle, Proclus, Ibn al-Haytha…Read more
  • An edited collection of essays by leading scholars on the history of the concept of space in Western science and philosophy. Figures discussed include Euclid, Plato, Aristotle, Proclus, Ibn al-Haytham, Oresme, Kepler, Descartes, Newton, Leibniz, Berkeley and Kant. Contributors include Barbara Sattler, Marije Martijn, Edith Sylla, Andrew Janiak, Michael Friedman, Gary Hatfield, etc.
  •  70
    Review: The Architecture of Matter (review)
    Mind 115 (460): 1130-1133. 2006.
  •  15
    Newton's philosophy
    Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. 2008.
  •  1
    Kant's Newtonianism
    Dissertation, Indiana University. 2001.
    Kant's understanding of two significant philosophical issues, the status of space and the nature of scientific explanation, can be illuminated by considering his reaction to the emergence of Newtonian gravitational physics. Although Kant accepts---with important provisos---the view that space bears an absolute status, he rejects Newton's philosophical interpretation of that status. Characterizing this rejection poses a problem. It is commonly thought that Kant's conception of space can be unders…Read more
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  •  63
    Newton as Philosopher
    Cambridge University Press. 2008.
    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, René Descartes, and of his most influenti…Read more
  •  81
    Interpreting Newton: Critical Essays (edited book)
    Cambridge University Press. 2012.
    This collection of specially commissioned essays by leading scholars presents research on Isaac Newton and his main philosophical interlocutors and critics. The essays analyze Newton's relation to his contemporaries, especially Barrow, Descartes, Leibniz and Locke and discuss the ways in which a broad range of figures, including Hume, Maclaurin, Maupertuis and Kant, reacted to his thought. The wide range of topics discussed includes the laws of nature, the notion of force, the relation of mathem…Read more
  •  181
    Kant's views on space and time
    Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. 2010.
  •  595
    Newton and the reality of force
    Journal of the History of Philosophy 45 (1): 127-147. 2007.
    : Newton's critics argued that his treatment of gravity in the Principia saddles him with a substantial dilemma. If he insists that gravity is a real force, he must invoke action at a distance because of his explicit failure to characterize the mechanism underlying gravity. To avoid distant action, however, he must admit that gravity is not a real force, and that he has therefore failed to discover the actual cause of the phenomena associated with it. A reinterpretation of Newton's distinction b…Read more
  • Isaac Newton: Philosophical Writings (edited book)
    Cambridge University Press. 2004.
    Sir Isaac Newton left a voluminous legacy of writings. Despite his influence on the early modern period, his correspondence, manuscripts, and publications in natural philosophy remain scattered throughout many disparate editions. In this volume, Newton's principal philosophical writings are for the first time collected in a single place. They include excerpts from the Principia and the Opticks, his famous correspondence with Boyle and with Bentley, and his equally significant correspondence with…Read more
  •  97
    Metaphysics and Natural Philosophy in Descartes and Newton
    Foundations of Science 18 (3): 403-417. 2013.
    This paper compares Newton’s and Descartes’s conceptions of the complex relationship between physics and metaphysics
  •  100
    Kant as philosopher of science
    Perspectives on Science 12 (3): 339-363. 2004.
    Michael Friedman's Kant and the Exact Sciences (1992) refocused scholarly attention on Kant's status as a philosopher of the sciences, especially (but not exclusively) of the broadly Newtonian science of the eighteenth century. The last few years have seen a plethora of articles and monographs concerned with characterizing that status. This recent scholarship illuminates Kant's views on a diverse group of topics: science and its relation to metaphysics; dynamics and the theory of matter; causati…Read more
  •  44
    Space, atoms and mathematical divisibility in Newton
    Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 31 (2): 203-230. 2000.
  •  50
    Newton and Descartes: Theology and natural philosophy
    Southern Journal of Philosophy 50 (3): 414-435. 2012.
    Scholars have long recognized that Newton regarded Descartes as his principal philosophical interlocutor when composing the first edition of Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica in 1687. The arguments in the Scholium on space and time, for instance, can profitably be interpreted as focusing on the conception of space and motion in part two of Descartes's Principles of Philosophy (1644). What is less well known, however, is that this Cartesian conception, along with Descartes's attempt to…Read more