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Table of Contents
Intro
Preface to the 2nd Edition
Introduction
Contents
Part I: Seismic Vibrations in Metaphysics
Chapter 1: Disciplinary Transformations in the Age of Newton: The Case of Metaphysics
1.1 Introduction
1.2 Speculative Philosophy in the Peripatetic Tradition
1.3 Newton and Leibniz
1.4 Locke and Berkeley
1.5 Metaphysics in the Public Domain in Mid-century Britain and Germany
1.6 Hume
1.7 Metaphysics and the Physicians: William Cullen
1.8 The Kantian Turn
References
Part II: Metaphysics and the Analytical Method
Chapter 2: Leibniz' Concept of Possible Worlds and the Analysis of Motion in Eighteenth-Century Physics
2.1 The Year 1686
2.2 Individual Substance and World
2.3 Causality and Finality in Leibniz' Physics
2.4 1732: The Birth-Certificate of Maupertuis' Ideas
2.5 The Least Action Quantity Principle
2.6 The Essay on Cosmology
2.7 A Final View to Euler
2.8 A Priority Problem and Its Recent Discussion
2.9 Resume
References
Chapter 3: The Limits of Intelligibility: The Status of Physical Science in D'Alembert's Philosophy
3.1 Abstraction
3.2 Restoration
3.3 Properties
3.4 Simplicity
3.5 Winds
3.6 Essences
3.7 Impenetrability
3.8 Necessity
3.9 Springs and Other Gaps
3.10 Well-Known Facts About Forces
3.11 Attraction as a Last Recourse
3.12 Fluids
3.13 Fluids as Systems: D'Alembert's Principle
3.14 The Privilege of Destruction
3.15 Broken Branches
References
Chapter 4: "In Nature as in Geometry": Du Châtelet and the Post-Newtonian Debate on the Physical Significance of Mathematical Objects
4.1 Introduction
4.2 The Ambivalent Reception of Newton's Mathematical Physics
4.3 Du Châtelet on the Metaphysics of Mathematical Objects
4.3.1 Mathematical Objects and Metaphysical Idealism
4.3.2 The Metaphysics and Epistemology of Magnitude
4.3.3 The Power of Abstraction
4.3.4 Abstraction and Fictions
4.4 Du Châtelet's Defense of Inferences from Mathematics to Material Nature
4.4.1 Mathematical Fictions and Approximate Truth
4.4.2 From Mathematical to Physical Continuity
4.5 Conclusion
References
Chapter 5: Order of Nature and Orders of Science
5.1 Preliminaries: Three Points of Departure and One Aim
5.1.1 'Semantical Ladenness' of Mathematics
5.1.2 Euclideanism
5.1.3 Orders of Science
5.1.4 Understanding the Change of Concepts of Science
5.2 Mechanical Euclideanism: The Case of Newton's Principia
5.2.1 Mechanical Euclideanism
5.2.2 Axiomatic Structure and Empiristic Methodology
5.2.3 Newton's Euclideanism
5.3 Newtonian and Analytical Perspectives: Euler's Program of Rational Mechanics
5.3.1 'Synthetical' Beginnings of Analytical Mechanics
5.3.2 'Newtonian' Axiomatisation Without Newtonian Ontology
Preface to the 2nd Edition
Introduction
Contents
Part I: Seismic Vibrations in Metaphysics
Chapter 1: Disciplinary Transformations in the Age of Newton: The Case of Metaphysics
1.1 Introduction
1.2 Speculative Philosophy in the Peripatetic Tradition
1.3 Newton and Leibniz
1.4 Locke and Berkeley
1.5 Metaphysics in the Public Domain in Mid-century Britain and Germany
1.6 Hume
1.7 Metaphysics and the Physicians: William Cullen
1.8 The Kantian Turn
References
Part II: Metaphysics and the Analytical Method
Chapter 2: Leibniz' Concept of Possible Worlds and the Analysis of Motion in Eighteenth-Century Physics
2.1 The Year 1686
2.2 Individual Substance and World
2.3 Causality and Finality in Leibniz' Physics
2.4 1732: The Birth-Certificate of Maupertuis' Ideas
2.5 The Least Action Quantity Principle
2.6 The Essay on Cosmology
2.7 A Final View to Euler
2.8 A Priority Problem and Its Recent Discussion
2.9 Resume
References
Chapter 3: The Limits of Intelligibility: The Status of Physical Science in D'Alembert's Philosophy
3.1 Abstraction
3.2 Restoration
3.3 Properties
3.4 Simplicity
3.5 Winds
3.6 Essences
3.7 Impenetrability
3.8 Necessity
3.9 Springs and Other Gaps
3.10 Well-Known Facts About Forces
3.11 Attraction as a Last Recourse
3.12 Fluids
3.13 Fluids as Systems: D'Alembert's Principle
3.14 The Privilege of Destruction
3.15 Broken Branches
References
Chapter 4: "In Nature as in Geometry": Du Châtelet and the Post-Newtonian Debate on the Physical Significance of Mathematical Objects
4.1 Introduction
4.2 The Ambivalent Reception of Newton's Mathematical Physics
4.3 Du Châtelet on the Metaphysics of Mathematical Objects
4.3.1 Mathematical Objects and Metaphysical Idealism
4.3.2 The Metaphysics and Epistemology of Magnitude
4.3.3 The Power of Abstraction
4.3.4 Abstraction and Fictions
4.4 Du Châtelet's Defense of Inferences from Mathematics to Material Nature
4.4.1 Mathematical Fictions and Approximate Truth
4.4.2 From Mathematical to Physical Continuity
4.5 Conclusion
References
Chapter 5: Order of Nature and Orders of Science
5.1 Preliminaries: Three Points of Departure and One Aim
5.1.1 'Semantical Ladenness' of Mathematics
5.1.2 Euclideanism
5.1.3 Orders of Science
5.1.4 Understanding the Change of Concepts of Science
5.2 Mechanical Euclideanism: The Case of Newton's Principia
5.2.1 Mechanical Euclideanism
5.2.2 Axiomatic Structure and Empiristic Methodology
5.2.3 Newton's Euclideanism
5.3 Newtonian and Analytical Perspectives: Euler's Program of Rational Mechanics
5.3.1 'Synthetical' Beginnings of Analytical Mechanics
5.3.2 'Newtonian' Axiomatisation Without Newtonian Ontology