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This paper investigates Newton’s ontology of space in order to determine its commitment, if any, to both Cambridge neo-Platonism, which posits an incorporeal basis for space, and substantivalism, which regards space as a form of substance or entity. A non-substantivalist interpretation of Newton’s theory has been famously championed by Howard Stein and Robert DiSalle, among others, while both Stein and the early work of J. E. McGuire have downplayed the influence of Cambridge neo-Platonism on various aspects of Newton’s own spatial (...) |
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The author argues that Newton’s distinction between absolute and relative motion, i.e. the refusal to define motion in relation to sensible things, in “Scholium on time, space, place and motion” from _Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy_, stems in great part from his critical stance towards Descartes’s philosophy of nature. This is apparent from the comparison of “Scholium”, in which Descartes is not mentioned at all, with Newton’s criticism of him in his manuscript _De gravitatione_. The positive results of Newton’s encounter (...) |
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As I have read the scholium, it divides into three main parts, not including the introductory paragraph. The first consists of paragraphs one to four in which Newton sets out his characterizations of absolute and relative time, space, place, and motion. Although some justificatory material is included here, notably in paragraph three, the second part is reserved for the business of justifying the characterizations he has presented. The main object is to adduce grounds for believing that the absolute quantities are (...) |
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Will Ladislaw's words, which so disillusion the young Dorothea, might also depress the modern interpreter of Newton's theology. Encountering the bulk of Newton's manuscript theology, it is tempting to sympathize with Dorothea's eventual response toThe Key to all Mythologies, and to want nothing of it. The assessment of John Conduitt, Newton's son-in-law and executor, that his ‘relief and amusement was going to some other study, as history, chronology, divinity, and chemistry’ has in the past provided an ample excuse for those (...) |
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The widely accepted supposition that Newton’s De gravitatione was written in 1684/5 just before composing the Principia is examined. The basis for this determination has serious difficulties starting with the failure to examine the numerical estimates for the resistance of aether. The estimated range is not nearly nil as claimed but comparable with air at or near the earth’s surface. Moreover, the evidence provided most likely stems from experiments by Boyle, Hooke, and others in the 1660s and does not use (...) |
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