Between Leibniz, Newton, and Kant

1. Front Matter

   Pages I-XVI

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2. Seismic Vibrations in Metaphysics

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 1-1

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   2. Disciplinary Transformations in the Age of Newton: The Case of Metaphysics

      • Alan Gabbey

      Pages 3-23

3. Metaphysics and the Analytical Method

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 25-25

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   2. Leibniz’ Concept of Possible Worlds and the Analysis of Motion in Eighteenth-Century Physics

      • Hartmut Hecht

      Pages 27-45

   3. The Limits of Intelligibility: The Status of Physical Science in D’Alembert’s Philosophy

      • François De Gandt

      Pages 47-60

   4. Order of Nature and Orders of Science

      • Helmut Pulte

      Pages 61-92

4. Avenues of Newtonianism

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 93-93

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   2. Samuel Clarke’s Annotations in Jacques Rohault’s Traité de Physique, and How They Contributed to Popularising Newton’s Physics

      • Volkmar Schüller

      Pages 95-110

   3. Kant on Extension and Force: Critical Appropriations of Leibniz and Newton

      • Eric Watkins

      Pages 111-127

   4. Enlightenment Scotland’s Philosophico-Chemical Physics

      • David B. Wilson

      Pages 129-145

5. Can Matter Think?

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 147-147

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   2. Materialistic Theories of Mind and Brain

      • Ann Thomson

      Pages 149-173

   3. Kant’s Second Paralogism in Context

      • Falk Wunderlich

      Pages 175-188

6. Metaphysics and Natural Philosophy

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 189-189

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   2. Natural or Artificial Systems?

      • Wolfgang Lefèvre

      Pages 191-209

7. Back Matter

   Pages 211-288

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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.

• Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz
• Kant
• natural philosophy
• physical sciences
• proposition

• Max-Planck-Institute for the History of Science, Berlin, Germany

  Wolfgang Lefèvre

Policies and ethics