Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction
- Chronology
- Further reading
- Note on texts and translations
- I “New Theory about Light and Colours”
- II Correspondence with Robert Boyle [1679]
- III De Gravitatione [date unknown]
- IV The Principia [1687, first edition]
- V “An Account of the System of the World”
- VI Correspondence with Richard Bentley [1691–3]
- VII Correspondence with G. W. Leibniz [1693/1712]
- VIII Correspondence with Roger Cotes [1713]
- IX An Account of the Book Entitled Commercium Epistolicum [1715]
- X Queries to the Opticks [1721]
- Index
- References
Introduction
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 August 2014
Edited by
Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction
- Chronology
- Further reading
- Note on texts and translations
- I “New Theory about Light and Colours”
- II Correspondence with Robert Boyle [1679]
- III De Gravitatione [date unknown]
- IV The Principia [1687, first edition]
- V “An Account of the System of the World”
- VI Correspondence with Richard Bentley [1691–3]
- VII Correspondence with G. W. Leibniz [1693/1712]
- VIII Correspondence with Roger Cotes [1713]
- IX An Account of the Book Entitled Commercium Epistolicum [1715]
- X Queries to the Opticks [1721]
- Index
- References
Summary
In the preceding books I have presented principles of philosophy that are not, however, philosophical but strictly mathematical - that is, those on which the study of philosophy can be based. These principles are the laws and conditions of motions and of forces, which especially relate to philosophy. But in order to prevent these principles from becoming sterile, I have illustrated them with some philosophical scholia, treating topics that are general and that seem to be the most fundamental for philosophy, such as the density and resistance of bodies, spaces void of bodies, and the motion of light and sounds. It still remains for us to exhibit the system of the world from these same principles.
… to treat of God from phenomena is certainly a part of natural philosophy.
– Isaac NewtonNewton as natural philosopher
Isaac Newton’s influence is ubiquitous 300 years after his death. We employ Newtonian mechanics in a wide range of cases, students worldwide learn the calculus that he co-discovered with Leibniz, and the law of universal gravitation characterizes what is still considered a fundamental force. Indeed, the idea that a force can be “fundamental,” irreducible to any other force or phenomenon in nature, is largely due to Newton, and still has currency in the twenty-first century. Remarkably, Newton’s status as a theorist of motion and of forces, and his work as a mathematician, is equaled by his status as an unparalleled experimentalist.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Newton: Philosophical Writings , pp. vii - xxxvPublisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2014
References
’s book, On the Connexion of the Physical Sciences (The Quarterly Review 51 [1834], 59).Google Scholar
and , Before Science: The Invention of the Friars’ Natural Philosophy (Brookfield: Scholar’s Press, 1996),Google Scholar
, “Newton’s Metaphysics,” in The Cambridge Companion to Newton, ed. and (Cambridge University Press, 2002),Google Scholar
’s influence on the eighteenth century, see “Isaac Newton and the Eighteenth Century,” Enlightenment and Dissent 25 (2009), ed. Stephen SnobelenGoogle Scholar
, Kant’s Construction of Nature: A Reading of the Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science (Cambridge University Press, 2012).Google Scholar
, “Metaphysics, Philosophy: Rousseau on the Problem of Evil,” in Reclaiming the History of Ethics: Essays for John Rawls, ed. , and (Cambridge University Press, 1997).Google Scholar
, “Newton, Locke and Hume,” in Interpreting Newton: Critical Essays, ed. and (Cambridge University Press, 2012).Google Scholar
and (eds.), Certain Philosophical Questions: Newton’s Trinity Notebook (Cambridge University Press, 1983).Google Scholar
’s extremely long letter of November 14, 1690 in The Correspondence of Isaac Newton, ed. , , , and (Cambridge University Press, 1959–77), vol. iii, 83–129.Google Scholar
Oeuvres complètes de Christiaan Huygens, ed. (The Hague: Nijhoff, 1888–1950), vol. x, 602Google Scholar
’s work, both of which are reprinted in Isaac Newton’s Papers and Letters on Natural Philosophy, ed. and , revised edn (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1978,);Google Scholar
, Theories of Light from Descartes to Newton, 2nd edn (Cambridge University Press, 1981), 264–7.Google Scholar
first appeared in The Works of the Honourable Robert Boyle, ed. (London, 1744), vol. i, 70–4.Google Scholar
, Elements of Early Modern Physics (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1982), 30.Google Scholar
, Cambridge in the Age of the Enlightenment (Cambridge University Press, 1985), 54–5 and 143–5).Google Scholar
Unpublished Scientific Writings of Isaac Newton, ed. and (Cambridge University Press, 1962)Google Scholar
, The Janus Faces of Genius: The Role of Alchemy in Newton’s Thought (Cambridge University Press, 1991), 141–6,Google Scholar
raises important doubts concerning earlier interpretations, concluding that the text must have been written before Halley’s famous visit to Newton in 1684 – see “Newton’s De gravitatione: A Review and Reassessment,” Archive for the History of the Exact Sciences 66 (2012).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
presents this interpretation of Newton’s Principia in his classic essay, “Newtonian Space-Time,” in The Annus Mirabilis of Sir Isaac Newton 1666–1966, ed. (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1970).Google Scholar
The Optical Papers of Isaac Newton, ed. (Cambridge University Press, 1984), vol. i, 86–7Google Scholar
, who first noted that Newton uses the word “feign” in a parallel discussion in English: From the Closed World to the Infinite Universe (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1957), 229 and 299 n. 12.Google Scholar
, “Hypotheses in Newton’s Philosophy,” Physis: Rivista Internazionale di Storia della Scienza 8 (1966), 163–84.Google Scholar
, Equivalence and Priority: Newton vs. Leibniz (Oxford University Press, 1993), 128–9.Google Scholar
, Forces and Fields: The Concept of Action at a Distance in the History of Physics (London: Nelson, 1961).Google Scholar
, “Newton on Action at a Distance and the Cause of Gravity,” Studies in History and Philosophy of Science 42 (2011), 154–9;CrossRefGoogle Scholar
, “Gravity and De Gravitatione: The Development of Newton’s Ideas on Action at a Distance,” Studies in History and Philosophy of Science 42 (2011), 11–27;CrossRefGoogle Scholar
, “Newton’s Substance Monism, Distant Action, and the Nature of Newton’s Empiricism,” Studies in History and Philosophy of Science 42 (2011), 160–6.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
’s reply to their criticisms in “Three Concepts of Cause in Newton,” Studies in History and Philosophy of Science 44 (2013): 397–407.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
(ed.), The Correspondence between Princess Elisabeth of Bohemia and René Descartes (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2007),Google Scholar
(ed.), Descartes: Correspondance avec Arnauld et Morus, texte Latin et traduction (Paris: Librairie philosophique Vrin, 1953).Google Scholar
, “Philosophia Cartesiana Triumphata: Henry More (1646–1671),” in Problems of Cartesianism, ed. et al. (Kingston and Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1982).Google Scholar
, “The Spatial Presence of Spirits among the Cartesians,” Journal of the History of Philosophy 46 (2008), 91–118.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
, “Substance and Action in Newton and Descartes,” The Monist 93 (October 2010), 657–77.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
: “Gravity and Newton’s Substance Counting Problem,” Studies in History and Philosophy of Science 40 (2009), 267–80,CrossRefGoogle Scholar