Switch to: References

Add citations

You must login to add citations.
  1. Will and artifice: the impact of voluntarist theology on early-modern science.Francis Oakley - 2019 - History of European Ideas 45 (6):767-784.
    This article is in part an intervention in the ongoing debate inaugurated by Peter Harrison in 2002 when he called into question the validity of what had come by then to be called ‘the voluntarism and science thesis.’ Though it subsequently drew support from such historians of science as J.E. McGuire, Margaret Osler, Betty Jo Teeter Dobbs and, more recently, John Henry (in rebuttal of Harrison), the origins of the thesis are usually traced back to articles published in 1934–1936 and (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  • Revaluing Laws of Nature in Secularized Science.Eli I. Lichtenstein - 2022 - In Yemima Ben-Menahem (ed.), Rethinking the Concept of Law of Nature: Natural Order in the Light of Contemporary Science. Springer. pp. 347-377.
    Discovering laws of nature was a way to worship a law-giving God, during the Scientific Revolution. So why should we consider it worthwhile now, in our own more secularized science? For historical perspective, I examine two competing early modern theological traditions that related laws of nature to different divine attributes, and their secular legacy in views ranging from Kant and Nietzsche to Humean and ‘governing’ accounts in recent analytic metaphysics. Tracing these branching offshoots of ethically charged God-concepts sheds light on (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   3 citations  
  • Does Berkeley's Immaterialism Support Toland's Spinozism? The Posidonian Argument and the Eleventh Objection.Eric Schliesser - 2020 - Royal Institute of Philosophy Supplement 88:33-71.
    This paper argues that a debate between Toland and Clarke is the intellectual context to help understand the motive behind the critic and the significance of Berkeley's response to the critic in PHK 60-66. These, in turn, are responding to Boyle's adaptation of a neglected design argument by Cicero. The paper shows that there is an intimate connection between these claims of natural science and a once famous design argument. In particular, that in the early modern period the connection between (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   1 citation  
  • Newton’s substance monism, distant action, and the nature of Newton’s empiricism: discussion of H. Kochiras “Gravity and Newton’s substance counting problem”.Eric Schliesser - 2011 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 42 (1):160-166.
    This paper is a critical response to Hylarie Kochiras’ “Gravity and Newton’s substance counting problem,” Studies in History and Philosophy of Science 40 267–280. First, the paper argues that Kochiras conflates substances and beings; it proceeds to show that Newton is a substance monist. The paper argues that on methodological grounds Newton has adequate resources to respond to the metaphysical problems diagnosed by Kochiras. Second, the paper argues against the claim that Newton is committed to two speculative doctrines attributed to (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   26 citations  
  • Newton, the sensorium of God, and the cause of gravity.John Henry & Barry Loewer - 2020 - Science in Context 33 (3):329-351.
    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, (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   3 citations  
  • Roger Bacon (c. 1220–1292) and his System of Laws of Nature: Classification, Hierarchy and Significance.Yael Kedar & Giora Hon - 2017 - Perspectives on Science 25 (6):719-745.
    The idea that nature is governed by laws and that the goal of science is to discover and formulate these laws, rose to prominence during the Scientific Revolution of the seventeenth century. It was manifestly held by the most significant actors of that revolution such as Galileo, Descartes, Kepler, Boyle, and Newton. But this idea was not new. In fact, it made an appearance in the Middle Ages, and it is likely to have emerged already in Antiquity.1In this paper we (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   3 citations  
  • La forma como ley natural en Francis Bacon.Damián Pachón - 2017 - Cuadernos de Filosofía Latinoamericana 38 (117):105-133.
    El trabajo de investigación busca esclarecer la Forma baconiana como “ley natural”. Se sostiene que los otros sentidos del concepto de Forma en Bacon, tales como diferencia verdadera, fuente de emanación o naturaleza naturante, forman parte de su eclecticismo, pero en estricto sentido, esas expresiones no dicen nada en torno a las leyes de las naturalezas simples o de los fenómenos físicos. En contraste, la Forma como ley no sólo permite comprender mejor la peculiar lectura de Bacon sobre la legalidad (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  • Voluntarism and the origins of modern science: A reply to John Henry.Peter Harrison - 2009 - History of Science 47 (2):223-231.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   7 citations  
  • Newtonian Emanation, Spinozism, Measurement and the Baconian Origins of the Laws of Nature.Eric Schliesser - 2013 - Foundations of Science 18 (3):449-466.
    The first two sections of this paper investigate what Newton could have meant in a now famous passage from “De Graviatione” (hereafter “DeGrav”) that “space is as it were an emanative effect of God.” First it offers a careful examination of the four key passages within DeGrav that bear on this. The paper shows that the internal logic of Newton’s argument permits several interpretations. In doing so, the paper calls attention to a Spinozistic strain in Newton’s thought. Second it sketches (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   10 citations  
  • Primary and Secondary Causation in Samuel Clarke’s and Isaac Newton’s Theories of Gravity.John Henry - 2020 - Isis 111 (3):542-561.
    Samuel Clarke is best known to historians of science for presenting Isaac Newton’s views to a wider audience, especially in his famous correspondence with G. W. Leibniz. Clarke’s independent writings, however, reveal positions that do not derive from, and do not coincide with, Newton’s. This essay compares Clarke’s and Newton’s ideas on the cause of gravity, with a view to clarifying our understanding of Newton’s views. There is evidence to suggest that Newton believed God was directly responsible for gravity, and (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   3 citations  
  • Gravity and De gravitatione: the development of Newton’s ideas on action at a distance.John Henry - 2011 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 42 (1):11-27.
    This paper is in three sections. The first establishes that Newton, in spite of a well-known passage in a letter to Richard Bentley of 1692, did believe in action at a distance. Many readers may see this merely as an act of supererogation, since it is so patently obvious that he did. However, there has been a long history among Newton scholars of allowing the letter to Bentley to over-ride all of Newton’s other pronouncements in favour of action at a (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   28 citations  
  • Samuel Clarke on Agent Causation, Voluntarism, and Occasionalism.Andrea Sangiacomo - 2018 - Science in Context 31 (4):421-456.
    ArgumentThis paper argues that Samuel Clarke's account of agent causation (i) provides a philosophical basis for moderate voluntarism, and (ii) both leads to and benefits from the acceptance of partial occasionalism as a model of causation for material beings. Clarke's account of agent causation entails that for an agent to be properly called an agent (i.e. causally efficacious), it is essential that the agent is free to choose whether to act or not. This freedom is compatible with the existence of (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   9 citations  
  • Robert Boyle and the representation of imperceptible entities.Alexander Wragge-Morley - 2018 - British Journal for the History of Science 51 (1):17-40.
    In this essay, I examine Robert Boyle's strategies for making imperceptible entities accessible to the senses. It is well known that, in his natural philosophy, Boyle confronted the challenge of making imperceptible particles of matter into objects of sensory experience. It has never been noted, however, that Boyle confronted a strikingly similar challenge in his natural theology – he needed to make an equally imperceptible God accessible to the senses. Taking this symmetrical difficulty as my starting point, I propose a (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   4 citations