On Metaphysical Foundations of Physics: Body, Laws of Motion, and Essential Gravity
Abstract
This dissertation examines the relationship between metaphysics and physics in the work of three figures from the early modern period—Isaac Newton, Émilie Du Châtelet, and Immanuel Kant. The first chapter draws on Newton's De gravitatione and correspondence with Richard Bentley to assess the status of action at a distance vis-à-vis the centrality of impenetrability in Newton's metaphysics of body and his consistent rejection of essential gravity. The second chapter turns to Du Châtelet's Foundations of Physics and explicates her arguments against attraction as an essential property of matter. The final chapter considers Kant's treatment of the motions produced by forces in the absence of a general recovery of Newton's laws in the Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science.