This book continues the classical Newtonian theory in both its initial spirit and the spirit of general relativity. It throws a bridge between classical Newtonian theory of forces and some contemporary concepts of the atomic, nuclear and particle theories. This book takes the Skyrme theory of nuclear matter mainly from the point of view that it allows the initial analogy between the atomic edifice and the solar system in all details. Especially important is the detail that the atomic (...) nucleus works exactly like the Sun, and they can be described in the same way. Based on this unitary description, the authors go further on, in showing that the Skyrme theory is the only theory naturally suited for the explanation of structure of nuclear matter. Thus it should be actually a classical theory, inasmuch as it simply carries over into microcosmos the very Newtonian theory of forces extracted from the planetary Keplerian synthesis of celestial motions. By this the problem of structure of the nucleus becomes actually a problem of classical physics. (shrink)

Archibald Pitcairne’s medical writings are inspired by Newton’s Principia mathematica, as the Scottish physician assumed Newtonian physics as a model for scientific inquiry that should be applied to other branches of natural philosophy, including physiology and pathology. The ideal of a comprehensive mathematical science was very appealing to late seventeenth-century intellectuals, including physicians. This essay focuses on how Pitcairne tried to implement these ideas. In particular, I argue that Pitcairne’s medical thinking is based on three philosophical assumptions: first, (...) a methodological assumption, for which medical knowledge should be sought in the form of a deductive system; second, an epistemological assumption, that is, that our knowledge of physiological processes is sound only when we reduce them to a set of mathematical laws; and, third, an ontological assumption that identifies blood as the substance on which animal life most directly depends. I also suggest that such ideas should be studied against the backdrop of Pitcairne’s general mindset, including his personal sympathy for political conservativism. I further argue that his insistence on the reduction of natural processes to mathematical relations and his search for the universal order of nature also connect to his religious and political ideals. (shrink)

David Malament, now emeritus at the University of California, Irvine, where since 1999 he served as a Distinguished Professor of Logic and Philosophy of Science after having spent twenty-three years as a faculty member at the University of Chicago , is well known as the author of numerous articles on the mathematical and philosophical foundations of modern physics with an emphasis on problems of space-time structure and the foundations of relativity theory. Malament’s Topics in the foundations of general relativity (...) and Newtonian gravitation theory has grown out of a set of lecture notes on the foundations of general relativity that he has taught for many years. In full agreement with Manchak , it should be pointed out from the beginning that the book neither is and was never intended to be a graduate general relativity a .. (shrink)

The equivalence principle has constituted one of the cornerstones of discussions in the foundations of spacetime theories over the past century. However, up to this point the principle has been considered overwhelmingly only within the context of relativistic physics. In this article, we demonstrate that the principle has much broader, super-theoretic significance: to do so, we present a unified framework for understanding the principle in its various guises, applicable to both relativistic and Newtonian contexts. We thereby deepen significantly our (...) understanding of the role played by the equivalence principle in a broad class of spacetime theories. (shrink)

Newtonian forces are pushes and pulls, possessing magnitude and direction, that are exerted (in the first instance) by objects, and which cause (in particular) motions. I defend Newtonian forces against the four best reasons for denying or doubting their existence. A running theme in my defense of forces will be the suggestion that Newtonian Mechanics is a special science, and as such has certain prima facie ontological rights and privileges, that may be maintained against various challenges.

Newtonian mechanics is more than just an empirically successful theory of matter in motion: it is an account of what knowledge of the physical world should look like. But what is this account? What is distinctive about it? To answer these questions, I begin by introducing the laws of motion, the relations among them, and the spatio-temporal framework that is implicit in them. Then I turn to the question of their methodological character. This has been the locus of philosophical (...) discussion from Newton’s time to the present, and I survey the views of some of the major contributors. I show that while Newtonian mechanics motivates a number of philosophical ideas about force, mass, motion, and causality – and through this, ideas about space and time – the laws are themselves the outcome of a philosophical or critical conceptual analysis. (shrink)

There has recently been a renewed interest in the “force” interpretation of evolutionary biology. In this article, I present the general structure of the arguments for the force interpretation and identify a problem in its overly permissive conditions for being a Newtonian force. I then attempt a solution that (1) helps to illuminate the difference between forces and other types of causes and (2) makes room for random genetic drift as a force. In particular, I argue that forces are (...) not different in kind from other types of causes but rather that forces are situated on a continuum of causes distinguished by their unifying power. †To contact the author, please write to: Department of Philosophy, University of Wisconsin–Madison, 5185 Helen C. White Hall, Madison, WI 53706; e‐mail: [email protected]. (shrink)

Hume’s arguments against the cosmological argument have, in the past century, often been highly praised by commentators such as H.D.Aiken and E.C. Mossner. While Hume’s argument often receives strong philosophical support, the four major objections raised against the cosmological argument in book IX of his Dialogues hinge upon a misunderstanding of Newtonian natural philosophy. Hence, when the proper historical context is considered, Hume’s objections are weak at best, for they assume an understanding of matter and physical necessity that (...) are inconsistent with Newtonian natural philosophy. This paper will outline Hume’s objections, and explore how the formulation of the cosmological argument put forth by the English philosopher Samuel Clarke was reliant upon the best available scientific evidence, i.e. Newtonian philosophy. Consequently, any contemporary supporter of Hume who believes that his argument was successful in quenching the enlightenment era reiteration of the cosmological argument does so anachronistically. (shrink)

Hahn boldly corrects the misconceptions of Kant’s Copernican revolution in philosophy and explains the specific Newtonian model used by Kant to construct his own philosophy in the _Critique of Pure Reason. _ Relying on resources familiar to Kant—Newton’s _Opticks _and _Principia _and especially Christian von Wolff’s commentary on scientific method—Hahn argues that Kant viewed Copernicus as the proponent of a novel hypothesis while seeing Newton as the formulator of a rigorously deductive method. Intellectual revolutions, for Kant, are (...) signaled by the formulation of rigorous deductions. The revolution that Kant proposes to effect in the _Critique of Pure Reason _is based on Newton’s deductive method, not the hypothesis of Copernicus. Thus, the commonplace that Kant effects a Copernican revolution misrepresents Kant’s expressed views on the matter, it distorts Kant’s view of Copernicus, and it misleads us in our efforts to understand what the revolution in natural science meant to him, as the very model on which his metaphysics rests. (shrink)

I argue that the best spacetime setting for Newtonian gravitation (NG) is the curved spacetime setting associated with geometrized Newtonian gravitation (GNG). Appreciation of the ‘Newtonian equivalence principle’ leads us to conclude that the gravitational field in NG itself is a gauge quantity, and that the freely falling frames are naturally identified with inertial frames. In this context, the spacetime structure of NG is represented not by the flat neo-Newtonian connection usually made explicit in formulations, but (...) by the sum of the flat connection and the gravitational field. 1 Introduction2 Newtonian Gravity: The Orthodox Approach3 Newtonian Gravity: Additional Symmetries4 Cosmological Considerations5 A Newtonian Equivalence Principle: Inertial Frames in Newtonian Gravitation6 Theory Equivalence?7 Conclusion. (shrink)

Through an examination of the controversy between Clairaut and Buffon occasioned by Clairaut's proposed revision of Newton's inverse-square law, Clairaut's understanding of Newtonianism is revealed. The interplay in his thought between the possibility of falsification , and the necessity of seeking verification in terms of mathematically precise consequences, indicates a fruitful development of Newtonianism into probabilism. That Clairaut's principles stem from Newton rather than from the Cartesians is indicated by his retention of a delicate balance between the claims of mathematics (...) and those of observation, a balance in which the claims of metaphysics are weightless. (shrink)

In my essay I look at the specifics of the dispute between the Scottish metaphysician Andrew Baxter and the mathematician Colin MacLaurin in an attempt to identify the source or sources of their contradictory, yet in both cases Newtonian, positions regarding occasionalism. After some general introductory remarks about each thinker, I examine the metaphysical implications that Baxter sees as following from Newton's concept of vis inertiæ. Following this, I look at MacLaurin's commitment to the role of sense experience in (...) natural philosophy. Finally, I discuss the different passages from Newton's Opticks on which the two thinkers focus. (shrink)

This paper follows up a debate as to the consistency of Newtonian cosmology. Whereas Malament has shown that Newtonian cosmology *is* not inconsistent, to date there has been no analysis of Norton’s claim that Newtonian cosmology *was* inconsistent prior to certain advances in the 1930s, and in particular prior to Seeliger’s seminal paper of 1895. In this paper I agree that there are assumptions, Newtonian and cosmological in character, and relevant to the real history of science, (...) which are inconsistent. But there are some important corrections to make to Norton’s account. Here I display for the first time the inconsistencies—four in total—in all their detail. Although this extra detail shows there to be several different inconsistencies, it also goes some way towards explaining why they went unnoticed for two hundred years. (shrink)

This paper introduces a possible alternative model of gravity based on the theory of fractional-dimension spaces and its applications to Newtonian gravity. In particular, Gauss’s law for gravity as well as other fundamental classical laws are extended to a D-dimensional metric space, where D can be a non-integer dimension. We show a possible connection between this Newtonian Fractional-Dimension Gravity (NFDG) and Modified Newtonian Dynamics (MOND), a leading alternative gravity model which accounts for the observed properties of galaxies (...) and other astrophysical structures without requiring the dark matter hypothesis. The MOND acceleration constant $${a_{0}} \simeq 1.2 \times 10^{-10} \text {m}\, \text{s}^{-2}$$ can be related to a natural scale length $$l_{0}$$ in NFDG, i.e., $$a_{0} \approx GM/l_{0}^{2}$$, for astrophysical structures of mass M, and the deep-MOND regime is present in regions of space where the dimension is reduced to $$D \approx 2$$. For several fundamental spherically-symmetric structures, we compare MOND results, such as the empirical Radial Acceleration Relation (RAR), circular speed plots, and logarithmic plots of the observed radial acceleration $$g_{obs}$$ vs. the baryonic radial acceleration $$g_{bar}$$, with NFDG results. We show that our model is capable of reproducing these results using a variable local dimension $$D\left( w\right)$$, where $$w =r/l_{0}$$ is a dimensionless radial coordinate. At the moment, we are unable to derive explicitly this dimension function $$D\left( w\right)$$ from first principles, but it can be obtained empirically in each case from the general RAR. Additional work on the subject, including studies of axially-symmetric structures, detailed galactic rotation curves fitting, and a possible relativistic extension, will be needed to establish NFDG as a viable alternative model of gravity. (shrink)

For the last forty years, Hume's Newtonianism has been a debated topic in Hume scholarship. The crux of the matter can be formulated by the following question: Is Hume a Newtonian philosopher? Debates concerning this question have produced two lines of interpretation. I shall call them ‘traditional’ and ‘critical’ interpretations. The traditional interpretation asserts that there are many Newtonian elements in Hume, whereas the critical interpretation seriously questions this. In this article, I consider the main points made by (...) both lines of interpretations and offer further arguments that contribute to this debate. I shall first argue, in favor of the traditional interpretation, that Hume is sympathetic to many prominently Newtonian themes in natural philosophy such as experimentalism, criticality of hypotheses, inductive proof, and criticality of Leibnizian principles of sufficient reason and intelligibility. Second, I shall argue, in accordance with the critical interpretation, that in many cases Hume... (shrink)

This paper analyzes the metaphysical system developed in Cheyne’s Philosophical Principles of Religion. Cheyne was an early proponent of Newtonianism and tackled several philosophical questions raised by Newton’s work. The most pressing of these concerned the causal origin of gravitational attraction. Cheyne rejected the occasionalist explanations offered by several of his contemporaries in favor of a model on which God delegated special causal powers to bodies. Additionally, he developed an innovative approach to divine conservation. This allowed him to argue that (...) Newton’s findings provided evidence for God’s existence and providence without the need for continuous divine intervention in the universe. (shrink)

This article concerns the problem of time pressures in higher education from the perspective of Newtonian (clock)time and pedagogical action. While most recent critiques of contemporary time pressures turn to alternative time theories in place of Newtonian temporality, the current paper outlines a way to conceive education from a Newtonian time perspective while also retaining theorizations of education as a form of cyclical and uncertain interaction. Time is theorized as changes in the immediate present which transform an (...) uncertain and potential future to an evident and permanent past in a Newtonian-linear temporal framework. Education, on the other hand, is defined as pedagogical influence to foster student’s human growth, demonstrated in a teaching–studying–learning relationship. Slow education theories and strategies are proposed as a way to reclaim time for education from the accelerative time policies of HE from within a linear time perspective instead of having to propose alternative time theories to ‘free’ education from its rootedness in the temporality of past, present, and future. (shrink)

In Newtonian gravity it is a moot question whether energy should be localized in the field or inside matter. An argument from relativity suggests a compromise in which the contribution from the field in vacuum is positive definite. We show that the same compromise is implied by Noether’s theorem applied to a variational principle for perfect fluids, if we assume Dirichlet boundary conditions on the potential. We then analyse a thought experiment due to Bondi and McCrea that gives a (...) clean example of inductive energy transfer by gravity. Some history of the problem is included. (shrink)

In two recent papers Perez Laraudogoitia has described a variety of supertasks involving elastic collisions in Newtonian systems containing a denumerably infinite set of particles. He maintains that these various supertasks give examples of systems in which energy is not conserved, particles at rest begin to move spontaneously, particles disappear from a system, and particles are created ex nihilo. An analysis of these supertasks suggests that they involve systems that do not satisfy the mathematical conditions required of Newtonian (...) systems at the time the supertask is due to be completed, or else they rely on the application of the time-reversal transformation to states which are not well-defined. Consequently, it is unjustified to conclude that the paradoxical results are arising from within the framework of Newtonian mechanics. In the last part of this article, we discuss various aspects of the physics of these supertasks. (shrink)

Reid was a Newtonian and a Theist, but did he found his Theism on Newton’s physics? In opposition to commonplace assumptions about the role of Theism in Reid’s philosophy, my answer is no. Reid prefers to found his Theism on a priori reasons, rather than on physics. Reid’s understanding of physics as an empirical science stops it from contributing in any clear and efficient way to issues of natural theology. In addition, Reid is highly sceptical of our ability (...) to discover the efficient and final causes of natural phenomena, knowledge of which is essential for natural theology. To bring out Reid’s differences with classical Newtonian Theists Richard Bentley and William Whiston, I examine their use of the law and force of general gravitation, and reconstruct what would be Reidian objections.Keywords: Thomas Reid; William Whiston; Richard Bentley; Physics; Theism; Isaac Newton. (shrink)

John Norton has recently argued that Newtonian gravitation theory (at least as applied to cosmological contexts where one envisions the possibility of a homogeneous mass distribution throughout all of space) is inconsistent. I am not convinced. Traditional formulations of the theory may seem to break down in cases of the sort Norton considers. But the difficulties they face are only apparent. They are artifacts of the formulations themselves, and disappear if one passes to the so-called "geometrized" formulation of the (...) theory. (shrink)

Kant’s ‘Newtonianism’ has been rightly highlighted by figures like Friedman. The follow-up debates led to a more adequate view on Kant’s natural philosophy and in particular his relation towards Newton. But the discussion that evolved did not point to the asynchronicity that takes place in Kant’s struggle with the central Newtonian concepts. Newtonian space and gravity, in revised form, are of central concern to Kant’s critical philosophy. But Kant adapted and re-evaluated these two concepts in an (...) asynchronous way. While Kant tries to integrate a notion of gravity into his theory of matter in his very first published writing, he has at this stage no adequate notion of space. At this time, as in regard to space, he can neither be called a Newtonian nor a proper Leibnizian and misconceives the necessity of an independent space for the foundations of physics. This perspective changes under the influence of Euler at the end of the fifties of the eighteenth century and finally leads to his writing of 1768 and the adoption of transcendental idealism in 1770. In the following, I depict this asynchronicity by taking central pre-critical writings into account while discussing Kant’s concept of space and gravity. This sharpens the picture of Kant’s work and the different stages his philosophy of nature went through. Further, it helps to understand the influence of Euler on Kant’s development in natural philosophy and his critical philosophy in general, as Kant under the influence of Euler formed deeper-going reflections on Newton’s theory of space and these mark turning points of his development. (shrink)

We investigate the evolution of linear density contrasts obtained with respect to a homogeneous spatially flat Friedman-Lemaître–Robertson–Walker background by solving the density contrast equations governed by Newtonian and MONDian force laws using symmetry-based approach. We find eight-parameter Lie group symmetries for the linear order density perturbation equation for the Newtonian case whereas the density contrast equation follows only one parameter Lie group symmetry in MONDian case. We use Lie symmetries to find the group invariant solutions from invariant curve (...) condition. The physical features of the evolution for various mode of density contrast with respect to the global cosmic background density in homogeneous isotropic cosmological models have been investigated using analytical group invariant solutions along with their numerical solutions. An account for cosmological density contrast and mass fluctuation also have been provided. We also have shown that the MONDian force law generates higher amplitudes in the density fluctuation, results in a more rapid structure formation that cannot be possible under the Newtonian force law. (shrink)

A closer examination of scientific practice has cast doubt recently on the thesis that observation necessarily fails to determine theory. In some cases scientists derive fundamental hypotheses from phenomena and general background knowledge by means of demonstrative induction. This note argues that it is wrong to interpret such an argument as providing inductive support for the conclusion, e.g. by eliminating rival hypotheses. The examination of the deduction of the inverse square law of gravitation due to J. Bertrand, and R. Fowler's (...) deduction of the quantization of the linear harmonic oscillator's energy spectrum from Planck's radiation law illustrates this point. It is suggested that demonstrative induction is a computational step in fitting a theoretical model and a set of phenomena, with little direct confirmational impact. The thesis of underdetermination, whatever one may think of it, is not threatened by demonstrative induction. (shrink)

Newtonian cosmology is logically inconsistent. I show its inconsistency in a rigorous but simple and qualitative demonstration. "Logic driven" and "content driven" methods of controlling logical anarchy are distinguished.

1. Introduction. David Malament has described a natural and satisfying resolution of the traditional problems of Newtonian cosmology—natural in the sense that it effects the escape by altering Newtonian gravitation theory in a way that leaves its observational predictions completely unaffected. I am in full agreement with his approach. There is one part of his account, however, over which Malament has been excessively modest. The resolution requires a modification to Newtonian gravitation theory. Malament presents the modification as (...) so straightforward as to be automatic. This trivializes the crucial postulate, which I shall call the “relativity of acceleration.” It is a significant physical statement in its own right and requires careful justification. Moreover the postulate proved easy to overlook for decades of discussion of the paradox. It really only becomes natural from the perspective of the newer geometric methods Malament exploits. There the postulate has become a commonplace. My purpose here is to develop the following: While Newtonian cosmology can be repaired satisfactorily, in its traditional form it remains deeply troubled. These troubles can be expressed most vividly as the paradoxical contradictions indicated below. They persist in both the integral and differential formulations of Newtonian gravitation theory. Malament's careful geometric treatment is necessarily dense. By taking some liberties with precision, his core result can be expressed in a far simpler form. Attempts to avoid the resolution Malament describes do lead to disaster. Therefore this episode can be inverted and used as the strongest extant argument for the relativity of acceleration in Newtonian gravitation theory. (shrink)

Supertasks recently discussed in the literature purport to display a failure ofenergy conservation and determinism in Newtonian mechanics. We debatewhether these supertasks are admissible as Newtonian systems, with Earmanand Norton defending the affirmative and Alper and Bridger the negative.

In this essay, I examine the curved spacetime formulation of Newtonian gravity known as Newton–Cartan gravity and compare it with flat spacetime formulations. Two versions of Newton–Cartan gravity can be identified in the physics literature—a ‘‘weak’’ version and a ‘‘strong’’ version. The strong version has a constrained Hamiltonian formulation and consequently a well-defined gauge structure, whereas the weak version does not (with some qualifications). Moreover, the strong version is best compared with the structure of what Earman (World enough and (...) spacetime. Cambridge: MIT Press) has dubbed Maxwellian spacetime. This suggests that there are also two versions of Newtonian gravity in flat spacetime—a ‘‘weak’’ version in Maxwellian spacetime, and a ‘‘strong’’ version in Neo-Newtonian spacetime. I conclude by indicating how these alternative formulations of Newtonian gravity impact the notion of empirical indistinguishability and the debate over scientific realism. r 2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to elucidate the question of whether Newtonian mechanics can be derived from relativity theory. Physicists agree that classical mechanics constitutes a limiting case of relativity theory. By contrast, philosophers of science like Kuhn and Feyerabend affirm that classical mechanics cannot be deduced from relativity theory because of the incommensurability between both theories; thus what we obtain when we take the limit c in relativistic mechanics cannot be Newtonian mechanics sensu stricto. In this (...) paper I focus on the alleged change of reference of the term mass in the transition from one theory to the other. Contradicting Kuhn and Feyerabend, special relativity theory supports the view that the mass of an object is a characteristic property of the object, that it has the same value in whatever frame of reference it is measured, and that it does not depend on whether the object is in motion or at rest. Thus mass preserves the reference through the change of theory, and the existence of a Newtonian limit of relativity theory provides a good example of the rationality of theory change in mathematical physics. (shrink)

A number of recent papers have criticized what they call the dynamical interpretation of evolutionary theory found in Elliott Sober’s The Nature of Selection. Sober argues that we can think of evolutionary theory as a theory of forces analogous to Newtonian mechanics. These critics argue that there are several important disanalogies between evolutionary and Newtonian forces: Unlike evolutionary forces, Newtonian forces can be considered in isolation, they have source laws, they compose causally in a straightforward way, and (...) they are intermediate causes in causal chains. Here we defend and extend the forces analogy by arguing that each of these criticisms is based on a misunderstanding of Newtonian forces. Our discussion also has the interesting consequence that natural selection turns out to be more similar to forces such as friction and elastic forces rather than the more canonical gravitation. (shrink)

I argue that there is natural relationist interpretation of Newtonian and relativistic non-quantum physics. Although relationist, this interpretation does not fall prey to the traditional objections based on the existence of inertial effects.

Comparativism—the view that mass ratios are not grounded in absolute masses—faces a challenge by Baker which suggests that absolute masses are empirically meaningful. Regularity comparativism uses a liberalized version of the Mill-Ramsey-Lewis Best Systems Account to have both the laws of Newtonian gravity and the absolute mass scale supervene on a comparativist Humean mosaic as a package deal. I discuss three objections to this view and conclude that it is untenable. The most severe problem is that once we have (...) reduced away the absolute masses, there is nothing that stops us from also reducing the mass ratios. (shrink)

Some authors have defended the claim that one needs to be able to define ‘physical coordinate systems’ and ‘observables’ in order to make sense of general relativity. Moreover, in Rovelli (Physical Review D,65(4), 044017 2002), Rovelli proposes a way of implementing these ideas by making use of a system of satellites that allows defining a set of ‘physical coordinates’, the GPS coordinates. In this article I oppose these views in four ways. First, I defend an alternative way of understanding general (...) relativity which implies that we have a perfectly fine interpretation of the models of the theory even in the absence of ‘physical coordinate systems’. Second, I analyze and challenge the motivations behind the ‘observable’ view. Third, I analyze Rovelli’s proposal and I conclude that it does not allow extracting any physical information from our models that wasn’t available before. Fourth, I draw an analogy between general relativistic spacetimes and Newtonian spacetimes, which allows me to argue that as ‘physical observables’ are not needed in Newtonian spacetime, then neither are they in general relativity. In this sense, I conclude that the ‘observable’ view of general relativity is unmotivated. (shrink)

To what extent is the scientist's endeavor qua scientist influenced by his philosophic image of himself? A preliminary and partial answer to this question is suggested by a study of eight physiological thinkers of the second half of the eighteenth century, a period during which biology was much influenced by the scientific and philosophical ideas of Isaac Newton. At this time, physiologists invoked certain "principles," "properties," and "powers" which were deemed useful as explanatory devices, even though they could not themselves (...) be explained. The use of these devices in physiology was often defended in terms of their supposed similarity to devices used in mathematics and Newtonian physics. The results of this practice are considered critically, partly in the light of current studies of scientific explanation. (shrink)

I point out a radical indeterminism in potential-based formulations of Newtonian gravity once we drop the condition that the potential vanishes at infinity. This indeterminism, which is well known in theoretical cosmology but has received little attention in foundational discussions, can be removed only by specifying boundary conditions at all instants of time, which undermines the theory's claim to be fully cosmological, i.e., to apply to the Universe as a whole. A recent alternative formulation of Newtonian gravity due (...) to Saunders pp.22-48) provides a conceptually satisfactory cosmology but fails to reproduce the Newtonian limit of general relativity in homogenous but anisotropic universes. I conclude that Newtonian gravity lacks a fully satisfactory cosmological formulation. (shrink)

It has been a traditional claim that Newtonian inductivism sharply contradicts Cartesian deductivism, and that Newton's rejection of the method of hypothesis is intended as a criticism of the Cartesian scientific methodology. There have been some sharp attacks against the received view that Descartes aimed at the construction of a purely a priori science, but despite this two beliefs still dominate even recent interpretations of Descartes' work. The first is the belief that a significant part of Descartes' natural (...) class='Hi'>philosophy was meant to be a priori, and the second is the belief that the Cartesian empirical scientific method was a version of the method of hypothesis. Also, new light has been shed on Newton's famed inductivism and his rejection of the method of hypothesis, a light which shows first, that the traditional inductive interpretation of Newton's method falls significantly short of capturing the richness of this method, and second, that hypotheses play an important role in shaping the conceptual framework in which Newton's work was developed. Despite these recent interpretations, however, an accurate account of Newton's experimental method and an examination of the exact scope and significance of Newton's critique and rejection of the method of hypothesis are still needed. ;The central thesis of this dissertation is that a study of the methodological work and actual scientific practice of Descartes and Newton reveals profound similarities that can be traced back to their employment of the same scientific method of discovery, namely the method of analysis. To that end, I have undertaken a comparative study of the methodological and scientific work of both thinkers. I argue that the official Cartesian method is not the method of hypothesis, and that Descartes did not think any of the parts of his science to be purely a priori. I also argue that the content of Newtonian methodology exceeds that of simple induction, and I try to reconstruct this method as accurately as possible. The conclusion is reached that both Newton and Descartes employed the same scientific method, and that the differences in the fruits delivered by this method are due to the differences between the conceptual frameworks within which Descartes' and Newton's thoughts were developed. (shrink)

I examine Popper’s claims about Newton’s use of induction in Principia with the actual contents of Principia and draw two conclusions. Firstly, in common with most other philosophers of his generation, it appears that Popper had very little acquaintance with the contents and methodological complexities of Principia beyond what was in the famous General Scholium. Secondly Popper’s ideas about induction were less sophisticated than those of Newton, who recognised that it did not provide logical proofs of the results obtained using (...) it, because of the possibilities of later, contrary evidence. I also trace the historical background to commonplace misconceptions about Newton’s method.Author Keywords: Newton; Popper; Induction; Principia; Kepler’s laws. (shrink)

This book provides an introduction to Newtonian and relativistic mechanics. Unlike other books on the topic, which generally take a 'top-down' approach, it follows a novel system to show how the concepts of the 'science of motion' evolved through a veritable jungle of intermediate ideas and concepts. Starting with Aristotelian philosophy, the text gradually unravels how the human mind slowly progressed towards the fundamental ideas of inertia physics. The concepts that now appear so obvious to even a high (...) school student took great intellectuals more than a millennium to clarify. The book explores the evolution of these concepts through the history of science. After a comprehensive overview of the discovery of dynamics, it explores fundamental issues of the properties of space and time and their relation with the laws of motion. It also explores the concepts of spatio-temporal locality and fields, and offers a philosophical discussion of relative motion versus absolute motion, as well as the concept of an absolute space. Furthermore, it presents Galilean transformation and the principle of relativity, inadequacy of Galilean relativity and emergence of the spatial theory of relativity with an emphasis on physical understanding, as well as the debate over relative motion versus absolute motion and Mach's principle followed by the principle of equivalence. The natural follow-on to this section is the physical foundations of general theory of relativity. Lastly, the book ends with some new issues and possibilities regarding further modifications of the laws of motion leading to the solution of a number of fundamental issues closely connected with the characteristics of the cosmos. It is a valuable resource for undergraduate students of physics, engineering, mathematics, and related disciplines. It is also suitable for interdisciplinary coursework and introductory reading outside the classroom. (shrink)