Synonyms
Introduction
“Action at a distance,” in the period with which we are concerned, included all claims about interaction that do not involve direct contact action between bodies or indirect contact action between bodies (of which there were supposed to be two major types: transmission of the movement of one body to another by sending a pulse of movement through an intervening material plenum and communication of one body with another by the emission of a stream of invisibly small material particles from one body to the other) (Parigi 2015). The assumption of subscribers to action at a distance was simply that action could be communicated between bodies by means other than by physical contact, and this must therefore involve some supposed immaterial entity. G. W. Leibniz recognized that Newton’s view of gravity was an action at a distance and demanded to know what nonmaterial agent he supposed to be its cause:
are perhaps some immaterial substances, or some...
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
References
Adamson P (2007) Al-Kindi. Oxford University Press, Oxford
Adamson P, Pormann PE (eds) (2012) The philosophical works of Al-Kindi. Oxford University Press, Oxford
Alexander HG (ed) (1956) The Leibniz-Clarke correspondence. Manchester University Press, Manchester
Bacon F (2000) In: Jardine L, Silverthorne M (eds) The new Organon. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge
Bacon F (2013) In: Robertson JM (ed) The philosophical works of Francis Bacon. Routledge, London/New York
Clarke S (1738) In: Hoadly B (ed)., 4 vols Works. John and Paul Knapton, London
Cohen IB (1980) The Newtonian revolution. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge
Cohen IB (1982) The Principia, universal gravitation, and the “Newtonian style”, in relation to the Newtonian revolution in science. In: Bechler Z (ed) Contemporary Newtonian research. Reidel, Dordrecht, pp 21–108
Copenhaver BP (1992) Hermetica: the Greek Corpus Hermeticum and the Latin Aclepius in a new English translation. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge
Copenhaver BP (2015) Magic in Western culture: from antiquity to the enlightenment. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge
Ducheyne S (2014) Newton on action at a distance. J Hist Philos 52:675–702
Ficino M (1998) Three books of life (eds and trans: Kaske CV, Clark JR). Medieval and Renaissance Texts and Studies, Tempe
Gunther RT (1930) Early science in Oxford, volume 6: the life and work of Robert Hooke, part I. For the Subscribers, Oxford
Henry J (2011) Gravity and De gravitatione: the development of Newton’s ideas on action at a distance. Stud Hist Phil Sci 42:11–27
Henry J (2019) Newton and action at a distance. In: Schliesser E, Smeenk C (eds) A handbook of Isaac Newton. Oxford University Press, Oxford
Hesse M (1963) Forces and fields: the concept of action at a distance in the history of physics. Thomas Nelson and Sons, London
Kant I (2004) Metaphysical foundations of natural science (trans: Friedman M). Cambridge University Press, Cambridge
Kepler J (1981) Mysterium cosmographicum. The secret of the universe (trans: Duncan AM). Abaris Books, New York
Lindberg DC (1986) The genesis of Kepler’s theory of light: light metaphysics from Plotinus to Kepler. Osiris 2:4–42
Musser G (2016) Spooky action at a distance. Scientific American/Farrar, Straus and Giroux, New York
Newton I (1962) Unpublished scientific papers of Isaac Newton (eds and trans: Hall AR, Boas Hall M). Cambridge University Press, Cambridge
Newton I (1979) Opticks… based on the fourth edition London, 1730. Dover, New York
Newton I (1999) The principia: mathematical principles of natural philosophy (eds and trans: Cohen IB, Whitman A). University of California Press, Berkeley
Parigi S (2015) Effluvia, action at a distance, and the challenge of the third causal model. Int Stud Philos Sci 29:351–368
Petty W (1674) The discourse made before the Royal Society the 26 of November, 1674, concerning the use of duplicate proportion in sundry important particulars together with a new hypothesis of springing or Elastique motions. John Martyn, London
Schofield RE (1970) Mechanism and materialism: British natural philosophy in an age of reason. Princeton University Press, Princeton
Stephenson B (1987) Kepler’s physical astronomy. Princeton University Press, Princeton
Thackray A (1970) Atoms and powers: an essay on Newtonian matter-theory and the development of chemistry. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA
Thackray A (1972) John Dalton: critical assessments of his life and science. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA
Wallis J (1665) An essay… exhibiting his hypothesis about the flux and reflux of the sea…. Philos Trans R Soc 1:263–282
Wang X (2016) Francis Bacon and magnetical cosmology. Isis 107:707–721
Westfall RS (1980) Never at rest: a biography of Isaac Newton. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge
Wilkins J (1640) Discourse concerning a new planet. John Maynard, London
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Section Editor information
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2020 Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this entry
Cite this entry
Henry, J. (2020). Action at a Distance in Early Modern Natural Philosophy. In: Jalobeanu, D., Wolfe, C. (eds) Encyclopedia of Early Modern Philosophy and the Sciences. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-20791-9_39-1
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-20791-9_39-1
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-20791-9
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-20791-9
eBook Packages: Springer Reference Religion and PhilosophyReference Module Humanities and Social SciencesReference Module Humanities