Ohio State nav bar

The Society for the History of Modern Philosophy Presents: Professor Zvi Biener

UH
March 30, 2015
All Day
347 University Hall

"Newton's a priorism about space and its rejection"

Abstract: In definitions written for possible inclusion in the third edition (1726) of Book III of the Principia, Newton defined both “body” and “vacuum” in terms of resistance: body is that which gives resistance, vacuum is the place in which body can move without resistance. Curiously, Newton is vehement that these definitions are not the only possible definitions of body and vacuum, but are merely the ones with which he is concerned in the Principia. About “other sorts of bodies and another sort of void”, he writes, “let authors in other sciences dispute”. This admission is stunning. Throughout his career—beginning with De Gravitatione’s metaphysics of void space as a necessary emanation of God, to the revisions of the corporeal transmutation hypothesis of the Principia’s first edition, to the draft definitions mentioned above—Newton had struggled with the concepts of body and void. During this time, he had often claimed that his concept of body is suited only to the project of the Principia—-other physical theories may hypothesize other sorts of bodies—-yet until these draft definitions, he had never done so for the concept of void. In fact, in the earlier De Gravitatione, he even portrayed his account of void space as the only metaphysically possible one!

By analyzing these draft definitions in conjunction with De Gravitatione and changes in the scholium on space and time, I argue that Newton’s notion of absolute, void space underwent a subtle change from the time of De Gravitatione to the 1720s. In particular, I argue that Newton started to question whether space was necessarily and absolutely inert. This change implies that Newton was close to rejecting the conception of space expressed in De Grav, the same conception that in contemporary literature is often presented as the Newtonian view of space. Furthermore, I show that the change in Newton’s conception was due to his increased subsumption of the the concept of space do his dynamical framework, a framework according to which the definitions of physical concepts cannot stand independently of and prior to the physical theory they found. Newton’s changing concept of void space thus challenges two related theses that condition many contemporary accounts of ‘Newtonianism’: First, that Newton’s philosophical views did not develop in the course of his career; in particular, that De Gravitatione expresses Newton’s mature Neo-Platonist-inspired metaphysics. And second, that Newton was a uncompromising absolutist about space until his dying day, i.e., that he intended to draw necessary and metaphysical conclusions about the nature of space from his physical theory.

Zvi Biener is an Assistant Professor at the University of Cincinnati.

To ask questions about accessibility or request accommodations, please contact Michelle Brown at 614-292-7914 or brown.930@osu.edu. Two weeks' advance notice will allow us to provide seamless access.