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NEWTON AND THE MECHANICAL PHILOSOPHY: GRAVITATION AS THE BALANCE OF THE HEAVENS
Author(s) -
MACHAMER PETER,
MCGUIRE J. E.,
KOCHIRAS HYLARIE
Publication year - 2012
Publication title -
the southern journal of philosophy
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.281
H-Index - 21
eISSN - 2041-6962
pISSN - 0038-4283
DOI - 10.1111/j.2041-6962.2012.00128.x
Subject(s) - slogan , newton's law of universal gravitation , simple (philosophy) , gravitation , balance (ability) , motion (physics) , philosophy , action (physics) , classical mechanics , epistemology , theoretical physics , physics , law , psychology , quantum mechanics , politics , political science , neuroscience
We argue that Isaac Newton really is best understood as being in the tradition of the Mechanical Philosophy and, further, that Newton saw himself as being in this tradition. But the tradition as Newton understands it is not that of Robert Boyle and many others, for whom the Mechanical Philosophy was defined by contact action and a corpuscularean theory of matter. Instead, as we argue in this paper, Newton interpreted and extended the Mechanical Philosophy's slogan “matter and motion” in reference to the long and distinguished tradition of mixed mathematics and the study of simple machines.