Levitin, Dmitri (Author)
Isis: International Review Devoted to the History of Science and Its Cultural Influences
Volume: 112
Issue: 2
Pages: 242-265
This essay provides solutions to the puzzles surrounding the meaning and development of Isaac Newton’s famous “Rules of Philosophizing.” It charts afresh the shift from the “Hypotheses” of the first edition of the Principia (1687) to the “Rules” of the second (1713). A completely new rule of philosophizing from an intermediate stage, when the rules were to be called “Axioms,” is presented: it contains Newton’s first ever planned attack on “hypotheses” as part of the Principia. Subsequently, the meaning and purpose of the notoriously ambiguous Hypothesis III and Rule III become clear. They were developed as part of an argument against the possibility of weightless matter, an issue of immense importance to Newton’s immediate supporters and opponents. As Newton introduced what would become Rule III, he gradually realized that it offered the inductive reasoning that underpinned both this polemical argument and the broader case for the universality of gravitation and other fundamental qualities: extension, impenetrability, inertia, and mobility. Hypothesis III could be removed and the argument against weightless matter confined to Corollary 2 to Proposition 6 of Book III. The Rules were not abstract methodological principles but were designed with a very specific polemical purpose in mind.
...MoreSimilar Citations
Article
Ducheyne, Steffen;
(2009)
Understanding (in) Newton's Argument for Universal Gravitation
(/isis/citation/CBB001230068/)
Chapter
Downing, Lisa;
(2012)
Maupertuis on Attraction as an Inherent Property of Matter
(/isis/citation/CBB001500348/)
Thesis
Kochiras, Hylarie;
(2008)
Force, Matter, and Metaphysics in Newton's Natural Philosophy
(/isis/citation/CBB001561168/)
Article
Caleb Hazelwood;
(2023)
Newton's “law-first” epistemology and “matter-first” metaphysics
(/isis/citation/CBB484510805/)
Essay Review
Guicciardini, Niccolò;
(2013)
Harper and Ducheyne on Newton
(/isis/citation/CBB001566365/)
Chapter
Giudice, Franco;
(2006)
Isaac Newton e la tradizione dei principi attivi nella filosofia naturale inglese del XVII secolo
(/isis/citation/CBB001024441/)
Essay Review
Huggett, Nick;
Smith, George E;
Miller, David Marshall;
Harper, William;
(2013)
On Newton's Method
(/isis/citation/CBB001500196/)
Chapter
George Smith;
(2014)
Closing the Loop: Testing Newtonian Gravity, Then and Now
(/isis/citation/CBB918539557/)
Chapter
Huggett, Nick;
(2012)
What Did Newton Mean by “Absolute Motion”?
(/isis/citation/CBB001500345/)
Article
Patrick J. Connolly;
(2021)
Causation and Gravitation in George Cheyne's Newtonian Natural Philosophy
(/isis/citation/CBB381679846/)
Chapter
Brading, Katherine;
(2012)
Newton's Law-Constitutive Approach to Bodies: A Response to Descartes
(/isis/citation/CBB001500338/)
Article
Adwait A. Parker;
(2020)
Newton on active and passive quantities of matter
(/isis/citation/CBB738730801/)
Chapter
Laymon, Ronald;
(1983)
Newton's demonstration of universal gravitation and philosophical theories of confirmation
(/isis/citation/CBB000028003/)
Article
(2005)
Open Forum: Newton vs. Hooke on Gravitation
(/isis/citation/CBB000640058/)
Book
Harper, William L.;
(2011)
Isaac Newton's Scientific Method: Turning Data into Evidence about Gravity and Cosmology
(/isis/citation/CBB001221264/)
Article
Ruffner, J. A.;
(2012)
Newton's “De Gravitatione”: A Review and Reassessment
(/isis/citation/CBB001232493/)
Article
DiSalle, Robert;
(2013)
The Transcendental Method from Newton to Kant
(/isis/citation/CBB001320267/)
Book
Jamie C. Kassler;
(2019)
Newton’s Sensorium: Anatomy of a Concept
(/isis/citation/CBB959510708/)
Article
Janiak, Andrew;
(2013)
Three Concepts of Causation in Newton
(/isis/citation/CBB001320264/)
Essay Review
Schliesser, Eric;
(2013)
The Methodological Dimension of the Newtonian Revolution
(/isis/citation/CBB001500206/)
Metascience: An International Review Journal for the History, Philosophy and Social Studies of Science
Archive for History of Exact Sciences
Early Science and Medicine: A Journal for the Study of Science, Technology and Medicine in the Pre-modern Period
Journal for General Philosophy of Science
Perspectives on Science
Be the first to comment!