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114Newton's Metaphysics: Essays by Eric Schliesser (review)Journal of the History of Philosophy 62 (1): 157-159. 2024.In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Newton's Metaphysics: Essays by Eric SchliesserMarius StanEric Schliesser. Newton's Metaphysics: Essays. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2021. Pp. 328. Hardback, $99.90.Newton owes his high regard to the quantitative science he left us, but his overall picture of the world had some robustly metaphysical threads woven in as well. Posthumous judgment about the value of these threads has varied wildly. Christian Wolff thoug…Read more
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33Beyond Newton, Leibniz and Kant: Insufficient Foundations, 1687–1786 (2nd ed.)In Wolfgang Lefèvre (ed.), Between Leibniz, Newton, and Kant: Philosophy and Science in the Eighteenth Century, Springer. pp. 295-310. 2023.Early modern foundations for mechanics came in two kinds, nomic and material. I examine here the dynamical laws and pictures of matter given respectively by Newton, Leibniz, and Kant. I argue that they fall short of their foundational task, viz. to represent enough kinematic behavior; or at least to explain it. In effect, for the true foundations of classical mechanics we must look beyond Newton, Leibniz, and Kant.
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154Eric Schliesser, Newton's Metaphysics. OUP 2021. (review)Journal of the History of Philosophy. forthcoming.
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491Theory, Evidence, Data: Themes from George E. SmithSpringer. 2023.A volume of papers inspired by the work of George E. Smith on confirmation and evidence in advanced science—from Newton's gravitation theory to the physics of molecules.
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1436Absolute and relative motionIn Charles Wolfe Dana Jalobeanu (ed.), Encyclopedia of Early Modern Philosophy and the Sciences, Springer. pp. 1-8. 2022.Modern philosophy of physics debates whether motion is absolute or relative. The debate began in the 1600s, so it deserves a close look here. Primarily, it was a controversy in metaphysics, but it had epistemic aspects too. I begin with the former, and then touch upon the latter at the end.
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425Phoronomy: space, construction, and mathematizing motionIn Michael Bennett McNulty (ed.), Kant's Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science: A Critical Guide, Cambridge University Press. pp. 80-97. 2022.
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519Newtonianism and the physics of du Châtelet's Institutions de physiqueIn Anna Marie Roos & Gideon Manning (eds.), Collected Wisdom of the Early Modern Scholar: Essays in Honor of Mordechai Feingold, Springer. pp. 277-97. 2022.Much scholarship has claimed the physics of Emilie du Châtelet’s treatise, Institutions de physique, is Newtonian. I argue against that idea. To do so, I distinguish three strands of meaning for the category ‘Newtonian science,’ and I examine her book against them. I conclude that her physics is not Newtonian in any useful or informative sense. To capture what is specific about it, we need better interpretive categories.
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1010How physics flew the philosophers' nestStudies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 88 (C): 312-20. 2021.
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19Space: A History ed. by Andrew Janiak (review)Journal of the History of Philosophy 59 (2): 343-344. 2021.This is a book with a purpose: it aims to chronicle the life of a concept from its birth in ancient Greece to its growth into centrality for early modern metaphysics, and its end with Kant, after whom classical space got displaced to a marginal position. The volume is commendable for its good balance of broad scope, depth of insight, and careful exposition. Its chapters impressively combine analytic sharpness with sensitivity to historical context and philological nuance. Moreover, the gender ba…Read more
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287Evidence and explanation in Kant's doctrine of lawsStudi Kantiani 34 141-49. 2021.I emphasize two merits of Eric Watkins’ account in "Kant on Laws": the strong evidential support it has, and the central place it gives to Kant’s laws of mechanics. Then, I raise two questions for further research. 1. What kind of evidential reasoning confirms a Kantian law? 2. Do natures explain Kantian laws? If so, how?
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424Standing colossus: Newton and the French. (review)Annals of Science 76 (3-4): 347-354. 2019.A critical discussion of J.B. Shank, 'Before Voltaire: the French Origins of "Newtonian" Mechanics,' University of Chicago Press, 2018.
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703From metaphysical principles to dynamical lawsIn David Marshall Miller & Dana Jalobeanu (eds.), The Cambridge History of Philosophy of the Scientific Revolution, Cambridge University Press. pp. 387-405. 2021.My thesis in this paper is: the modern concept of laws of motion—qua dynamical laws—emerges in 18th-century mechanics. The driving factor for it was the need to extend mechanics beyond the centroid theories of the late-1600s. The enabling result behind it was the rise of differential equations. In consequence, by the mid-1700s we see a deep shift in the form and status of laws of motion. The shift is among the critical inflection points where early modern mechanics turns into classical mechani…Read more
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30Response to H. Floris Cohen's essay review on Newtonian scholarship (review)British Journal for the History of Science 52 (2): 359-360. 2019.In a review of recent Newton scholarship, H. Floris Cohen charges that my paper is not a ‘case of worthwhile innovation, or even of any innovation at all’. I beg to differ.
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171Michela Massimi, ed. Kant and Philosophy of Science Today. (review)Hopos: The Journal of the International Society for the History of Philosophy of Science 1 (2): 364-367. 2011.
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70From General to Special Metaphysics of NatureIn Matthew C. Altman (ed.), The Palgrave Kant Handbook, Palgrave Macmillan. pp. 493-511. 2017.In his Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science, Kant presents the “pure part” of natural science – that is, the a priori principles holding of matter. This special metaphysics of matter is, Kant claims, grounded on the general metaphysics of nature described in the System of Principles of his first Critique. This chapter develops a comprehensive account of Kant’s framework for natural science that touches on interpretive issues that arise in the transition from general to special metaphysics…Read more
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1617Absolute Time: The Limit of Kant's IdealismNoûs 53 (2): 433-461. 2019.I examine here if Kant can explain our knowledge of duration by showing that time has metric structure. To do so, I spell out two possible solutions: time’s metric could be intrinsic or extrinsic. I argue that Kant’s resources are too weak to secure an intrinsic, transcendentally-based temporal metrics; but he can supply an extrinsic metric, based in a metaphysical fact about matter. I conclude that Transcendental Idealism is incomplete: it cannot account for the durative aspects of experienc…Read more
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1463Emilie du Chatelet's Metaphysics of SubstanceJournal of the History of Philosophy 56 (3): 477-496. 2018.Much early modern metaphysics grew with an eye to the new science of its time, but few figures took it as seriously as Emilie du Châtelet. Happily, her oeuvre is now attracting close, renewed attention, and so the time is ripe for looking into her metaphysical foundation for empirical theory. Accordingly, I move here to do just that. I establish two conclusions. First, du Châtelet's basic metaphysics is a robust realism. Idealist strands, while they exist, are confined to non-basic regimes. Seco…Read more
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843Newton and Wolff: The Leibnizian reaction to the Principia, 1716-1763Southern Journal of Philosophy 50 (3): 459-481. 2012.Newton rested his theory of mechanics on distinct metaphysical and epistemological foundations. After Leibniz's death in 1716, the Principia ran into sharp philosophical opposition from Christian Wolff and his disciples, who sought to subvert Newton's foundations or replace them with Leibnizian ideas. In what follows, I chronicle some of the Wolffians' reactions to Newton's notion of absolute space, his dynamical laws of motion, and his general theory of gravitation. I also touch on arguments ad…Read more
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712Metaphysical Foundations of Neoclassical MechanicsIn Michela Massimi & Angela Breitenbach (eds.), Kant and the Laws of Nature, Cambridge University Press. pp. 214-234. 2017.I examine here if Kant’s metaphysics of matter can support any late-modern versions of classical mechanics. I argue that in principle it can, by two different routes. I assess the interpretive costs of each approach, and recommend the most promising strategy: a mass-point approach.
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657Unity for Kant’s Natural PhilosophyPhilosophy of Science 81 (3): 423-443. 2014.I uncover here a conflict in Kant’s natural philosophy. His matter theory and laws of mechanics are in tension. Kant’s laws are fit for particles but are too narrow to handle continuous bodies, which his doctrine of matter demands. To fix this defect, Kant ultimately must ground the Torque Law; that is, the impressed torque equals the change in angular momentum. But that grounding requires a premise—the symmetry of the stress tensor—that Kant denies himself. I argue that his problem would not ar…Read more
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1334Absolute Space and the Riddle of Rotation: Kant’s Response to NewtonOxford Studies in Early Modern Philosophy 7 257-308. 2016.Newton had a fivefold argument that true motion must be motion in absolute space, not relative to matter. Like Newton, Kant holds that bodies have true motions. Unlike him, though, Kant takes all motion to be relative to matter, not to space itself. Thus, he must respond to Newton’s argument above. I reconstruct here Kant’s answer in detail. I prove that Kant addresses just one part of Newton’s case, namely, his “argument from the effects” of rotation. And, to show that rotation is relative to m…Read more
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2073Huygens on Inertial Structure and RelativityPhilosophy of Science 83 (2): 277-298. 2016.I explain and assess here Huygens’ concept of relative motion. I show that it allows him to ground most of the Law of Inertia, and also to explain rotation. Thereby his concept obviates the need for Newton’s absolute space. Thus his account is a powerful foundation for mechanics, though not without some tension.
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511Kant's Philosophy of Mechanics in 1758In Oliver Thorndike (ed.), Rethinking Kant, vol. III, Cambridge Scholars Press. pp. 158-179. 2011.
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1280Newton's Concepts of Force among the LeibniziansIn Mordechai Feingold (ed.), The Reception of Isaac Newton in Europe, Cambridge University Press. pp. 244-289. 2017.I argue that the key dynamical concepts and laws of Newton's Principia never gained a solid foothold in Germany before Kant in the 1750s. I explain this absence as due to Leibniz. Thus I make a case for a robust Leibnizian legacy for Enlightenment science, and I solve what Jonathan Israel called “a meaningful historical problem on its own,” viz. the slow and hesitant reception of Newton in pre-Kantian Germany.
Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts, United States of America
Areas of Specialization
General Philosophy of Science |
17th/18th Century Philosophy |
Areas of Interest
19th Century Philosophy |
Philosophy of Physical Science |
History of Physics |
PhilPapers Editorships
Kant: Science, Logic, and Mathematics, Misc |
Kant's Scientific Work |
Christian Wolff |