ArgumentIt is argued that the sensorium of God was introduced into theQuaestionesadded to the end of Newton’sOptice(1706) as a way of answering objections that Newton had failed to provide a causal account of gravity in thePrincipia. The discussion of God’s sensorium indicated that gravity must be caused by God’s will. Newton did not leave it there, however, but went on to show how God’s will created active principles as secondary causes of gravity. There was nothing unusual in assuming that God, (...) acting as the First Cause, operated in nature by means of secondary causes; but it was unusual to devote as much time to discussing God’s precise role as to discussing the secondary causes themselves. It is contended that Newton felt the need to do this to persuade readers that what might seem like a second cause that could not possibly work could be made to work by the omnipotent God. (shrink)

In this paper, I consider Isaac Newton’s fevered accusation that John Locke is a ‘Hobbist.’ I suggest a number of ways in which Locke’s account of the mind–body relation could plausibly be construed as Hobbesian. Whereas Newton conceives of the human mind as an immaterial substance and venerates it as a finite image of the Divine Mind, I argue that Locke utterly deflates the religious, ethical, and metaphysical significance of an immaterial soul. Even stronger, I contend that there is good (...) reason to suspect that Locke is a crypto-materialist, at least with respect to human beings, and in this respect, could reasonably be labeled a ‘Hobbist.’. (shrink)

Locke’s metaphysical commitments are a matter of some controversy. Further controversy attends the issue of whether and how Locke adapts his views in order to accommodate the success of Newton’s Principia. The chapter lays out an interpretation of Locke’s commitments according to which Locke’s response to Newton on gravity does not require the positing of brute powers and is consistent with his core essentialism. The chapter raises the question of how the hypothesis concerning the creation of matter, alluded to at (...) 4.10.18, fits with these commitments. The chapter concludes that the De grav hypothesis would represent a significant revision to the background metaphysical picture of the Essay, but that nevertheless its attractions to Locke are intelligible and illuminating. (shrink)

This is a preprinted excerpt from: Kochiras, “By ye Divine Arm: God and Substance in De gravitatione”, Religious Studies (Sept. 2013), 49(3): 327-356 (available at: https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/religious-studies/article/by-ye-divine-arm-god-and-substance -in-de-gravitatione/08D21B2C2611624FA11A0D6B115849AD ). In this preprinted excerpt, I explicate the concepts of matter and space that Newton develops in De gravitatione. As I interpret Newton’s account of created substances, bodies are constructed from qualities alone, as configured by God. Although regions of space and then “determined quantities of extension” appear to replace the Aristotelian substrate by functioning (...) as property-bearers, they actually serve only as logical subjects. An implication of the interpretation I develop is that only space is extended by having parts outside parts; material bodies are spatially extended only in a derivative sense, via the presence of their constitutive qualities or powers in space. (shrink)