The Bourgeois Individual and the Essential Properties of a Particle in Newton’s Thought

Abstract

Newton’s assertion that particles of matter have essential properties — here for instance, the property of inertia — is inadmissable according to his own methodological principles; only the determination, based on induction, of universal properties is admissable. Newton’s distinction between ‘universal’ and ‘essential’ properties was introduced to differentiate between properties of matter which can be eliminated and those which cannot. Gravitation — so the reconstruction of Newton’s deliberation — would be eliminated if there were only one particle; but this particle could still be ascribed inertia. This consideration however fulfills no purpose in physics, and the determination of inertia as a ‘universal property’ is completely sufficient for deriving trajectories of motion in the world. The determination of inertia as an ‘essential property’ is thus for Newton’s physics neither necessary nor admissable.