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It is a truism that philosophy and the sciences were closely linked in the age of Leibniz, Newton, and Kant; but a more precise determination of the structure and dynamics of this linkage is required. The subject matter of this volume is the interactions among the developments in philosophy and the transformations that the different branches of sciences, Baconian as well as classical, underwent during this period. Among the topics addressed are the transformations of metaphysics as a discipline, the emergence of analytical mechanics and its consequences for founding physics on metaphysics, the diverging avenues of 18th-century Newtonianism, the body-mind problem as dealt with by philosophers and physicians, and philosophical principles of classification in the life sciences. As an appendix, a critical edition and first translation into English of Newton's scholia from David Gregory's Estate on the Propositions IV through IX Book III of his Principia is added.
List of contents
One. Seismic Vibrations in Metaphysics.- 1 Disciplinary Transformations in the Age of Newton: The Case of Metaphysics.- Two. Metaphysics and the Analytical Method.- 2 Leibniz' Concept of Possible Worlds and the Analysis of Motion in Eighteenth-Century Physics.- 3 The Limits of Intelligibility: The Status of Physical Sciences in d'Alemberts Philosophy.- 4 Order of Nature and Orders of Science.- Three. Avenues of Newtonianism.- 5 Samuel Clarke's Annotations in Jacques Rohault's Traité de Physique, and How They Contributed to Popularising Newton's Physics.- 6 Kant on Extension and Force: Critical Appropriations of Leibniz and Newton.- 7 Enlightenment Scotland's Philosophico-Chemical Physics.- Four. Can Matter Think?.- 8 Materialistic Theories of Mind and Brain.- 9 Kant's Second Paralogism in Context: The Critique of Pure Reason on Whether Matter Can Think.- Five. Metaphysics and Natural History.- 10 Natural or Artificial Systems? The Eighteenth-Century Controversy on Classification of Animals and Plants and its Philosophical Contexts.- Appendices.- 2 The Concepts of Immanuel Kant's Natural Philosophy (1747-1780): A Database Rendering their Explicit and Implicit Networks.
Summary
It is a truism that philosophy and the sciences were closely linked in the age of Leibniz, Newton, and Kant; but a more precise determination of the structure and dynamics of this linkage is required. The subject matter of this volume is the interactions among the developments in philosophy and the transformations that the different branches of sciences, Baconian as well as classical, underwent during this period. Among the topics addressed are the transformations of metaphysics as a discipline, the emergence of analytical mechanics and its consequences for founding physics on metaphysics, the diverging avenues of 18th-century Newtonianism, the body-mind problem as dealt with by philosophers and physicians, and philosophical principles of classification in the life sciences. As an appendix, a critical edition and first translation into English of Newton's scholia from David Gregory's Estate on the Propositions IV through IX Book III of his Principia is added.
