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The Philosophy of Physics
The Philosophy of Physics ROBERTO TORRETTI University of Chile PUBLISHED BY THE PRESS SYNDICATE OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE The Pitt Building, Trumpington Street, Cambridge, United Kingdom CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS The Edinburgh Building, Cambridge CB2 2RU, UK www.cup.cam.ac.uk 40 West 20th Street, New York, NY 10011-4211, USA www.cup.org 10 Stamford Road, Oakleigh, Melbourne 3166, Australia Ruiz de Alarcón 13, 28014, Madrid, Spain © Roberto Torretti 1999 This book is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements, no reproduction of any part may take place without the written permission of Cambridge University Press. First published 1999 Printed in the United States of America Typeface Sabon 10.25/13 pt. System QuarkXPress [BTS] A catalog record for this book is available from the British Library. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available. 0 521 56259 7 hardback 0 521 56571 5 paperback Contents Preface xiii 1 The Transformation of Natural Philosophy in the Seventeenth Century 1 1.1 Mathematics and Experiment 2 1.2 Aristotelian Principles 8 1.3 Modern Matter 13 1.4 Galileo on Motion 20 1.5 Modeling and Measuring 30 1.5.1 Huygens and the Laws of Collision 30 1.5.2 Leibniz and the Conservation of “Force” 33 1.5.3 Rømer and the Speed of Light 36 2 Newton 41 2.1 Mass and Force 42 2.2 Space and Time 50 2.3 Universal Gravitation 57 2.4 Rules of Philosophy 69 2.5 Newtonian Science 75 2.5.1 The Cause of Gravity 75 2.5.2 Central Forces 80 2.5.3 Analytical -
Moral Values in Duhem's Philosophy of Science
View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by University of San Francisco The University of San Francisco USF Scholarship: a digital repository @ Gleeson Library | Geschke Center Philosophy College of Arts and Sciences 2011 The cS ientist as Impartial Judge: Moral Values in Duhem’s Philosophy of Science David J. Stump University of San Francisco, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: http://repository.usfca.edu/phil Part of the Philosophy Commons Recommended Citation Stump, David J., "The cS ientist as Impartial Judge: Moral Values in Duhem’s Philosophy of Science" (2011). Philosophy. Paper 13. http://repository.usfca.edu/phil/13 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the College of Arts and Sciences at USF Scholarship: a digital repository @ Gleeson Library | Geschke Center. It has been accepted for inclusion in Philosophy by an authorized administrator of USF Scholarship: a digital repository @ Gleeson Library | Geschke Center. For more information, please contact [email protected]. The Scientist as Impartial Judge: Moral Values in Duhem’s Philosophy of Science (Part of a book symposium New Perspectives on Pierre Duhem’s Aim and Structure of Scientific Theory in Metascience (2011) 20(1): 1-25) David J. Stump Department of Philosophy University of San Francisco 2130 Fulton Street San Francisco, CA 94117 [email protected] Rereading Duhem’s classic work in the philosophy of science is a true pleasure that I highly recommend. There is of course more in Duhem’s work than can possibly be covered in a short review, so I will focus on his famous epistemological claims and the solution that Duhem proposes to them. -
A Rhetorical Analysis of Sir Isaac Newton's Principia A
A RHETORICAL ANALYSIS OF SIR ISAAC NEWTON’S PRINCIPIA A THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF ARTS IN THE GRADUATE SCHOOL OF THE TEXAS WOMAN’S UNIVERSITY DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH, SPEECH, AND FOREIGN LANGUAGES COLLEGE OF ARTS AND SCIENCES BY GIRIBALA JOSHI, B.S., M.S. DENTON, TEXAS AUGUST 2018 Copyright © 2018 by Giribala Joshi DEDICATION Nature and Nature’s Laws lay hid in Night: God said, “Let Newton be!” and all was light. ~ Alexander Pope Dedicated to all the wonderful eighteenth-century Enlightenment thinkers and philosophers! ii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I would like to acknowledge the continuous support and encouragement that I received from the Department of English, Speech and Foreign Languages. I especially want to thank my thesis committee member Dr. Ashley Bender, and my committee chair Dr. Brian Fehler, for their guidance and feedback while writing this thesis. iii ABSTRACT GIRIBALA JOSHI A RHETORICAL ANALYSIS OF SIR ISAAC NEWTON’S PRINCIPIA AUGUST 2018 In this thesis, I analyze Isaac Newton's Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica in the framework of Aristotle’s theories of rhetoric. Despite the long-held view that science only deals with brute facts and does not require rhetoric, we learn that science has its own special topics. This study highlights the rhetorical situation of the Principia and Newton’s rhetorical strategies, emphasizing the belief that scientific facts and theories are also rhetorical constructions. This analysis shows that the credibility of the author and the text, the emotional debates before and after the publication of the text, the construction of logical arguments, and the presentation style makes the book the epitome of scientific writing. -
Philipp Frank at Harvard University: His Work and His Influence
Philipp Frank at Harvard University: His Work and His Influence The Harvard community has made this article openly available. Please share how this access benefits you. Your story matters Citation Holton, Gerald. 2006. Phillip Frank at Harvard: His Work and his Influence. Synthese 153 (2): 297-311. doi.org/10.1007/ s11229-005-5471-3 Citable link http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:37837879 Terms of Use This article was downloaded from Harvard University’s DASH repository, and is made available under the terms and conditions applicable to Other Posted Material, as set forth at http:// nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:dash.current.terms-of- use#LAA 10/12/04 Lecture at Philipp Frank Conferences in Prague & Vienna, Sept-Oct. ‘04 Philipp Frank at Harvard: His Work and his Influence by Gerald Holton My pleasant task today is to bring to life Philipp Frank’s work and influence during his last three decades, when he found a refuge and a position in America. In what follows, I hope I may call him Philipp--having been first a graduate student in one of his courses at Harvard, then his teaching assistant sharing his offices, then for many years his colleague and friend in the same Physics Department, and finally, doing research on his archival holdings kept at Harvard. I also should not hide my large personal debt to him, for without his recommendation in the 1950s to the Albert Einstein Estate, I would not have received its warm welcome and its permission, as the first one to do historical research in the treasure trove of unpublished letters and manuscripts, thus starting me on a major part of my career in the history of science. -
The Relationship Between Science and Religion in the Early Modern Period
Gennady P. Otyutskiy The relationship between science and religion in the Professor, Doctor of Philosophical Science, Professor of early modern period tends to be regarded one- the Department of political Science and international Relations Russian State Social University, Moscow, sidedly, with the Church as an oppressor and Russian Federation. persecutor of science. To prove this view, scholars ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9680-1918 usually cite the execution of Giordano Bruno and the E-mail: [email protected] trial of Galileo, and the Index Librorum Prohibitorum Received in: Approved in: 2021-01-15 2021-02-02 that included the works of Copernicus, Kepler, Galileo, DOI: https://doi.org/10.24115/S2446-6220202172682p.42-49 Descartes and others. At the same time, the so called “true science” is regarded as immanently disassociating itself from religion. Yet, first, one should not confuse the influence of the Church as a social institution with religion as the worldview framework for scientific creativity, while the Church can be an obstacle to scientific research, religion can be a stimulus for it. Second, it should be noted that the concept of God has played the role of a scientific hypothesis; therefore, the “God hypothesis” may be fairly regarded as a specific methodological tool. Third, it may prove useful to identify the methodological functions that such a hypothesis is able to perform based on the works of two scientific rivals, Leibniz and Newton. The content analysis method that is adopted in this work to study the texts of the two thinkers allowed us to identify ideas related to the specific functions of God within the naturalistic- scientific worldview. -
Historiographie De Paul Tannery Et Receptions De Son Œuvre: Sur L'invention Du Metier D'historien Des Sciences
Historiographie de Paul Tannery et receptions de son œuvre : sur l’invention du metier d’historien des sciences François Pineau To cite this version: François Pineau. Historiographie de Paul Tannery et receptions de son œuvre : sur l’invention du metier d’historien des sciences. Histoire, Philosophie et Sociologie des sciences. Université de Nantes, 2010. Français. NNT : 2010NANT2076. tel-00726388 HAL Id: tel-00726388 https://tel.archives-ouvertes.fr/tel-00726388 Submitted on 29 Aug 2012 HAL is a multi-disciplinary open access L’archive ouverte pluridisciplinaire HAL, est archive for the deposit and dissemination of sci- destinée au dépôt et à la diffusion de documents entific research documents, whether they are pub- scientifiques de niveau recherche, publiés ou non, lished or not. The documents may come from émanant des établissements d’enseignement et de teaching and research institutions in France or recherche français ou étrangers, des laboratoires abroad, or from public or private research centers. publics ou privés. UNIVERSITÉ DE NANTES UFR SCIENCES ET TECHNIQUES _____ ECOLE DOCTORALE SOCIETES, CULTURES, ECHANGES Année 2010 N° attribué par la bibliothèque Historiographie de Paul Tannery et réceptions de son œuvre : sur l'invention du métier d'historien des sciences ___________ THÈSE DE DOCTORAT Discipline : Épistémologie et Histoire des sciences et des techniques Présentée et soutenue publiquement par François PINEAU Le 11 décembre 2010, devant le jury ci-dessous Rapporteurs : M. Eberhard KNOBLOCH, Professeur, Berlin Mme Jeanne PEIFFER, Directeur de recherche CNRS, Paris Examinateurs : M. Anastasios BRENNER, Professeur, Montpellier M. Bernard VITRAC, Directeur de recherche CNRS, Paris Co-directeurs de thèse : Mme Évelyne BARBIN, Professeur, Nantes M. -
One of the Most Celebrated Physics Experiments of the 20Th Cent
Not Only Because of Theory: Dyson, Eddington and the Competing Myths of the 1919 Eclipse Expedition Introduction One of the most celebrated physics experiments of the 20th century, a century of many great breakthroughs in physics, took place on May 29th, 1919 in two remote equatorial locations. One was the town of Sobral in northern Brazil, the other the island of Principe off the west coast of Africa. The experiment in question concerned the problem of whether light rays are deflected by gravitational forces, and took the form of astrometric observations of the positions of stars near the Sun during a total solar eclipse. The expedition to observe the eclipse proved to be one of those infrequent, but recurring, moments when astronomical observations have overthrown the foundations of physics. In this case it helped replace Newton’s Law of Gravity with Einstein’s theory of General Relativity as the generally accepted fundamental theory of gravity. It also became, almost immediately, one of those uncommon occasions when a scientific endeavor captures and holds the attention of the public throughout the world. In recent decades, however, questions have been raised about possible bias and poor judgment in the analysis of the data taken on that famous day. It has been alleged that the best known astronomer involved in the expedition, Arthur Stanley Eddington, was so sure beforehand that the results would vindicate Einstein’s theory that, for unjustifiable reasons, he threw out some of the data which did not agree with his preconceptions. This story, that there was something scientifically fishy about one of the most famous examples of an experimentum crucis in the history of science, has now become well known, both amongst scientists and laypeople interested in science. -
``Mathematics'' and ``Physics'' in the Science of Harmonics
NISSUNA UMANA INVESTIGAZIONE SI PUO DIMANDARE VERA SCIENZIA S’ESSA NON PASSA PER LE MATEMATICHE DIMOSTRAZIONI LEONARDO DA VINCI vol. 4 no. 3-4 2016 Mathematics and Mechanics of Complex Systems STEFANO ISOLA “MATHEMATICS” AND “PHYSICS” IN THE SCIENCE OF HARMONICS msp MATHEMATICS AND MECHANICS OF COMPLEX SYSTEMS Vol. 4, No. 3-4, 2016 dx.doi.org/10.2140/memocs.2016.4.213 ∩ MM “MATHEMATICS” AND “PHYSICS” IN THE SCIENCE OF HARMONICS STEFANO ISOLA Some aspects of the role that the science of harmonics has played in the history of science are discussed in light of Russo’s investigation of the history of the concepts of “mathematics” and “physics”. 1. The rambling route of the ancient scientific method In several places in Russo’s writings on the history of science, one can find en- lightening discussions about the meanings of the concepts of “physics” and “math- ematics”, along with the particular notions of truth involved in them; see, e.g., [58, Chapter 6.6; 60, Chapter 15; 56; 57]. Both terms derive from the Greek: the original meaning of the former was the investigation of everything that lives, grows or, more generally, comes into existence, whereas the latter referred to all that is studied, thus deriving its meaning not from its content but from its method. In the Hellenistic period, the term “physics” continued to be used to indicate that sector of philosophy that addressed nature (the other sectors being ethics and logic), thus corresponding to what came to be called “natural philosophy” in modern times. On the other hand, the term “mathematics” was used to indicate all the disciplines (including geometry, arithmetic, harmonics, astronomy, optics, mechanics, hydro- statics, pneumatics, geodesy and mathematical geography) that shared the same method of investigation, based on the construction of theories by which “theorems” are proved, leaning on explicitly stated initial assumptions. -
Gaston Bachelard and the Hands of Albert Flocon†
Revista de Humanidades de Valparaíso Año 4 / 2016 / 2do semestre / N° 8 Págs. 205 - 221 ISSN 0719-4234 / eISSN 0719-4242 Gaston Bachelard and the Hands of Albert Flocon† Hans-Jörg Rheinberger* Abstract The paper deals with the engraving hand of Albert Flocon and its poietic description by the pen of Gaston Bachelard. It proceeds by discussing examples of the group of collaborative works that emerged from the cooperation between Flocon, the copperplate engraver and theoretician of perspective and Bachelard, the philosopher of science and scholar of literary images in mid-twentieth century Paris. Keywords: Gaston Bachelard, Albert Flocon, Images of the hand, Con- cretion, Abstraction, Perspective, Phenomenotechnique, Surrationalism. Gaston Bachelard y las manos de Albert Flocon Resumen Este artículo se ocupa del grabado de mano de Albert Flocon y la des- cripción poiética que realiza la pluma de Gaston Bachelard. Se procede a discutir los ejemplos del conjunto de trabajos que surgieron de la cooperación entre Flocon y Bachelard; el grabador en cobre y teórico de la perspectiva, y el filósofo de la ciencia y estudioso de imágenes literarias de la segunda mitad del siglo XX de París. Palabras clave: Gaston Bachelard, Albert Flocon, imágenes de la mano, concreción, abstracción, perspectiva, fenomenotécnica, surrealismo. __________________ † Dedicated to Roberto Torretti. Recibido: mayo 2016. * Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, Berlin. 205 206 / Revista de Humanidades de Valparaíso Año 4, 2016, 2do semestre, N° 8 ISSN 0719-4234 / eISSN 0719-4242 This paper concerns the engraving hand of Albert Flocon and its poietic description by the pen of Gaston Bachelard. -
Constructing Natural Historical Facts BACONIAN NATURAL HISTORY in NEWTON’S FIRST PAPER on LIGHT and COLORS
OUP UNCORRECTED PROOF – FIRSTPROOFS, Mon Feb 10 2014, NEWGEN 2 Constructing Natural Historical Facts BACONIAN NATURAL HISTORY IN NEWTON’S FIRST PAPER ON LIGHT AND COLORS Dana Jalobeanu* The peculiar structure of Newton’s first published paper on light and colors has been the subject of an astonishing diversity of readings: to date, scholars still do not agree as to what Newton wanted to prove in this paper or how he proved it.1 The structure of the paper is far from transparent. It consists of two very different parts: a historical account of what Newton called his “crucial experiment,” and a “doctrine of colors” consisting of thirteen propositions and an illustrative experiment. Equally debated has been the “style” of Newton’s demonstration.2 Newton begins the first part with an extensive his- torical account of how he became interested in the “celebrated phenomena of colors” and later reached one of its major results: that the shape of the spectrum refracted * Research for this paper has been supported by the grant PN-II-ID-PCE-2011-3-0719, “From Natural History to Science,” awarded by the CNCS. 1 The paper has been read, in turns, as a formal blunder of a young upstart who dared to make a clear break with the mitigated skepticism and anti-dogmatism of the Royal Society, and as a brilliant exercise of rhetoric aiming to rewrite in the “scientific style of the day” the results of six long years of optical research. The reason for the exercise of rhetoric has also been the subject of fierce debates. -
From Natural Philosophy to Natural Science: the Entrenchment of Newton's Ideal of Empirical Success
From Natural Philosophy to Natural Science: The Entrenchment of Newton's Ideal of Empirical Success Pierre J. Boulos Graduate Pro gram in Philosophy Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Faculty of Graduate Studies The Universly of Western Ontario London, Ontario April 1999 O Pierre J- Boulos 1999 National Library Bibliotheque nationale of Canada du Canada Acquisitions and Acquisitions et Bibliographic Services services bibliographiques 395 Wellington Street 395, rue Wellington Ottawa ON KIA ON4 Ottawa ON KIA ON4 Canada Canada Your Me Voue reference Our file Notre rddrence The author has granted a non- L'auteur a accorde me licence non exclusive licence dowing the exclusive pennettant a la National Library of Canada to Bibliotheque nationale du Canada de reproduce, loan, distribute or sell reproduire, preter, distribuer ou copies of this thesis in microform, vendre des copies de cette these sous paper or electronic formats. la forme de microfiche/£ih, de reproduction sur papier ou sur format electronique. The author retains ownership of the L'auteur conserve la propriete du copyright in this thesis. Neither the droit d'auteur qui protege cette these. thesis nor substantial extracts &om it Ni la these ni des extraits substantieis may be printed or otherwise de celle-ci ne doivent Stre imprimes reproduced without the author's ou autrement reproduits sans son permission. autorisation. ABSTRACT William Harper has recently proposed that Newton's ideal of empirical success as exempli£ied in his deductions fiom phenomena informs the transition fiom natural philosophy to natural science. This dissertation examines a number of methodological themes arising fiom the Principia and that purport to exemplifjr Newton's ideal of empirical success. -
Alchemy Is One of the Great Losers in the Historiography of Science
1 ©William R. Newman (Copyrighted Preprint: To Appear in Lumière et vision dans les sciences et dans les arts, de l'Antiquité du XVIIe siècle, Danielle Jacquart and Michel Hochmann, editors, Librairie Droz.) Newton’s Early Optical Theory and its Debt to Chymistry William R. Newman Indiana University ©William R. Newman 2 ©William R. Newman Newton’s Early Optical Theory and its Debt to Chymistry Introduction In the years immediately preceding Isaac Newton’s experimental demonstration that sunlight is actually a composition of heterogeneous spectral rays rather than being perfectly homogeneous, a sophisticated methodology based on the analysis and resynthesis of gross matter had decisively shown that chemical compounds were also made up of heterogeneous components. Although modern scholars tend to associate the experimental approach of seventeenth-century corpuscular matter theory with mechanical philosophers such as Pierre Gassendi and Robert Boyle, an extensive alchemical tradition extending from the High Middle Ages up to Boyle’s immediate predecessors had long used the analytic retrievability of the constituents of compounds to argue for the permanence of the ingredients that went into them. Boyle, in particular, was the direct heir of this lengthy alchemical tradition, especially in his use of the atomistic writings of the Wittenberg medical professor Daniel Sennert. It is a well known fact that the young Newton was heavily influenced by Boyle, but no one up to now has argued in detail for a transfer from Boyle’s work on “chymical” analysis and synthesis to the optical analyses and syntheses that formed the bases of Newton’s early optical work.1 Elsewhere I have argued that alchemical experimentation helped to bring a decisive end to traditional 3 ©William R.