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Newton’s Classic Deductions from Phenomena

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  31 January 2023

William Harpe
William Harpe*
Affiliation:
University of Western Ontario
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Extract

I take Newton’s arguments to inverse square centripetal forces from Kepler’s harmonic and areal laws to be classic deductions from phenomena. I argue that the theorems backing up these inferences establish systematic dependencies that make the phenomena carry the objective information that the propositions inferred from them hold. A review of the data supporting Kepler’s laws indicates that these phenomena are Whewellian colligations—generalizations corresponding to the selection of a best fitting curve for an open-ended body of data. I argue that the information theoretic features of Newton’s corrections of the Keplerian phenomena to account for perturbations introduced by universal gravitation show that these corrections do not undercut the inferences from the Keplerian phenomena. Finally, I suggest that all of Newton’s impressive applications of Universal gravitation to account for motion phenomena show an attempt to deliver explanations that share these salient features of his classic deductions from phenomena.

Type
Part V. Deduction From the Phenomena
Information
PSA: Proceedings of the Biennial Meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association , Volume 1990 , Issue 2: Volume Two: Symposia and Invited Papers 1990 , 1990 , pp. 182 - 196
Copyright
Copyright © Philosophy of Science Association 1991

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Footnotes

1

I want to thank Bryce Bennett, Ram Valluri, Rob DiSalle, Kathleen Okruhlik, John Nicholas and, especially, Curtis Wilson for help, encouragement and advice.

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