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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 February 2022
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.
When we examine physical theories in order to determine what assumptions lead philosophers to value some aspects of nature as more fundamental than others, we will find that the focal point for these underlying assumptions is the concept of matter expounded in the theory.
1 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 Heirhann, P. M. and McGuire, J. E., ‘Newtonian Forces and Lockean Powers: Concepts of Matter in Eighteenth-Century Thought’, Historical Studies in the Physical Sciences, 3 (1971) 233-306Google Scholar, and McGuire, J. E., ‘Forces, Powers, Aethers and Fields’ in Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science, Vol. XIII (forthcoming).Google Scholar
2 See Williams, L. Pearce, Michael Faraday, Basic Books, Inc., New York, 1964, p. 59Google Scholar; and Levere, Trevor, Affinity and Matter, Oxford University Press, London, 1971, p. 115.Google Scholar
3 Williams’ claim that Faraday was influenced by Boscovich and the Continental tradition has already been challenged. J. Brookes Spencer argues that “in terms of the fundamentals of their content, there appears to be essentially no correspondence between the Boscovich theory and Faraday's system of physical thought.” (‘Boscovich's Theory and its Relation to Faraday's Research: An Analytic Approach’, Archives for the History of the Exact Sciences 4 (1967-1968) 184-203, p. 202.) Concurring with this analysis, P. M. Heimann claims that “Faraday's theory in the ‘Speculation’ cannot be equated with ideas advanced by Boscovich in the Theoria, but is much more characteristic of a native British tradition in natural philosophy.” (‘Faraday's Theories of Matter and Electricity’, British Journal for the History of Science 5 (1971) 235-257, p. 236.
4 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 Westfall, Richard S., Force in Newton's Physics: The Science of Dynamics in the Seventeenth Century, American Elsevier, New York, 1971Google Scholar; , A. R. and Hall, M. B., Unpublished Scientific Papers of Isaac Newton, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1962; and J. E. McGuire, ‘Force, Active Principles, and Newton's Invisible Realm’, Ambix 15 (1968) 154-208.Google Scholar
5 Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm, Philosophical Papers and Letters, (transl. and ed. by Loemker, Leroy E.), University of Chicago Press, Chicago, vol. 2, p. 845.Google Scholar
6 Kant, Immanuel, Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science (transl. by Ellington, James), Bobbs-Merrill Co., Indianapolis, 1970, pp. 77-78.Google Scholar
7 Papers, vol. 1, pp. 173-174
8 Jammer, Max, Concepts of Force, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, 1957, pp. 179-180.Google Scholar
9 Buchdahl, Gerd, Metaphysics and the Philosophy of Science, MIT Press, Cambridge, 1969, p. 580.Google Scholar
10 Wolff, Robert, Kant's Theory of Mental Activity, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, 1963, p. 9.Google Scholar
11 Kant, Immanuel, Gedanken von der wahren Schätzung der lebendigen Kräfte in Kants Werke, vol. 1, Preussische Akademie der Wissenschaft, Georg Reimer, Berlin, 1902, p. 38.Google Scholar
12 Ibid., p. 39.
13 Ibid., p. 144.
14 Kant, Immanuel, Meditationum quarandam de igne succincta delineatio, Werke, vol. 1, pp. 371-372.Google Scholar
15 Ibid., pp. 373-374.
16 Ibid., p. 375.
17 Ibid., p. 380.
18 ">Kant, Immanuel, Metaphysicae cum geometria iunctae usus in philosophia naturali, cuius specimen I. continet monadologiam physicam, Werke, vol. 1, p. 481.Kant,+Immanuel,+Metaphysicae+cum+geometria+iunctae+usus+in+philosophia+naturali,+cuius+specimen+I.+continet+monadologiam+physicam,+Werke,+vol.+1,+p.+481.>Google Scholar
19 Ibid., pp. 485-486.
20 Ibid., p. 487.
