Abstract
Both the history of science and the history of philosophy demonstrate that different explanations of nature are motivated by different assumptions about what types of things need to be explained and what types of things are capable of explaining them. The view that diversity must be explained, for example, decrees that what is most fundamental is the immutable, and that diverse features of nature arise from essentially unchanging elements. This sort of view is best illustrated in atomistic theories where the characteristics of objects of our experience are ultimately accounted for in terms of the varying configurations and motions of indestructible atoms.
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Notes
Although attempts were made to develop dynamical theories both on the Continent and in Britain, I confine my discussion in this paper to the Continental dynamical tradition. For excellent studies of the British dynamical tradition see P. M. Heimann and J. E. Mc-Guire, ‘Newtonian Forces and Lockean Powers: Concepts of Matter in Eighteenth-Century Thought’, Historical Studies in the Physical Sciences, 3 (1971) 233–306, and J. E. McGuire, ‘Forces, Powers, Aethers and Fields’ in Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science, Vol. XIII (forthcoming).
See L. Pearce Williams, Michael Faraday, Basic Books, Inc., New York, 1964, p. 59;
Trevor Levere, Affinity and Matter, Oxford University Press, London, 1971, p. 115.
I do not mean to suggest that Newton consistently adhered to what I outline here as the ‘atomistic’ view. Indeed, the contrasts between his approach in the Principia and in the Opticks are striking. Helpful discussions of the development of Newton’s concept of force are available in Richard S. Westfall, Force in Newton’s Physics: The Science of Dynamics in the Seventeenth Century, American Elsevier, New York, 1971;
A. R. and M. B. Hall, Unpublished Scientific Papers of Isaac Newton, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1962;
J. E. McGuire, ‘Force, Active Principles, and Newton’s Invisible Realm’, Ambix 15 (1968) 154–208.
J. E. McGuire, ‘Force, Active Principles, and Newton’s Invisible Realm’, Ambix 15 (1968) 154–208.
Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, Philosophical Papers and Letters, (transl, and ed. by Leroy E. Loemker), University of Chicago Press, Chicago, vol. 2, p. 845.
Immanuel Kant, Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science (transl, by James Ellington), Bobbs-Merrill Co., Indianapolis, 1970, pp. 77–78.
Papers, vol. 1, pp. 173–174.
Max Jammer, Concepts of Force, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, 1957, pp. 179–180.
Gerd Buchdahl, Metaphysics and the Philosophy of Science, MIT Press, Cambridge, 1969, p. 580.
Robert Wolff, Kant’s Theory of Mental Activity, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, 1963, p. 9.
Immanuel Kant, Gedanken von der wahren Schätzung der lebendigen Kräfte in Kants Werke, vol. 1, Preussische Akademie der Wissenschaft, Georg Reimer, Berlin, 1902, p. 38.
Immanuel Kant, Gedanken von der wahren Schätzung der lebendigen Kräfte in Kants Werke, vol. 1, Preussische Akademie der Wissenschaft, Georg Reimer, Berlin, 1902 p. 39.
Immanuel Kant, Gedanken von der wahren Schätzung der lebendigen Kräfte in Kants Werke, vol. 1, Preussische Akademie der Wissenschaft, Georg Reimer, Berlin, 1902, p. 144.
Immanuel Kant, Meditationum quarandam de igne succincta delineatio, Werke, vol. 1, pp. 371–372.
Ibid., pp. 373–374.
Ibid., p. 375.
Ibid., p. 380.
Immanuel Kant, Metaphysicae cum geometria iunctae usus in philosophia naturali, cuius specimen I. continet monadologiam physicam, Werke, vol. 1, p. 481.
Ibid., pp. 485–486.
Ibid., p. 487.
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© 1974 D. Reidel Publishing Company, Dordrecht-Holland
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Buroker, J.V. (1974). Kant, the Dynamical Tradition, and the Role of Matter in Explanation. In: Schaffner, K.F., Cohen, R.S. (eds) PSA 1972. Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science, vol 20. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-010-2140-1_11
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