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In this collection of new and previously published essays, noted philosopher Eric Schliesser offers new interpretations of the signifance of Isaac Newton's metaphysics on his physics and the subsequent development of philosophy more broadly. In particular, he explores the rich resonances between Newton's and Spinoza's metaphysics. The volume includes a substantive introduction, new chapters on Newton's modal metaphysics and his theology, and two postscripts in which Schliesser responds to some of his most important critics, including Katherine Brading, Andrew Janiak, Hylarie Kochiras, Steffen Ducheyne, and Adwait Parker. The collection provides new and varied analyses on familiar focuses of Newton's work, adding important perspectives to the recent revival of interest in Spinoza's metaphysics.
At some point in their careers, most physicists make an attempt to read and understand Newton's Principia. Unfortunately, it is an extremely difficult book — it quickly becomes clear that one does not simply 'read' the Principia. Even for a professional physicist, Newton's prose (written in Latin and translated to English) is difficult to follow. His diagrams and figures are complicated and confusing. To understand fully what Newton had done, the problems he posed would have to be solved by the reader.Newton's geometric methods and techniques, and the geometry and vocabulary that passed for common knowledge in the late 17th century, are now arcane and all but inaccessible to a modern reader. The contents of the Principia are not. Most physicists and physics students, and many scientists in general, would find the physics in the Principia interesting, illuminating, and useful.This book presents all the wonderful physics in the Principia in a manner that a modern reader can recognize and understand, using physics and mathematics as we understand them in the 21st century.
This collection of essays is the fruit of about fifteen years of discussion and research by James Force and me. As I look back on it, our interest and concern with Newton's theological ideas began in 1975 at Washington University in St. Louis. James Force was a graduate student in philosophy and I was a professor there. For a few years before, I had been doing research and writing on Millenarianism and Messianism in the 17th and 18th centuries, touching occasionally on Newton. I had bought a copy of Newton's Observations upon the Prophecies of Daniel, and the Apocalypse of St. John for a few pounds and, occasionally, read in it. In the Spring of 1975 I was giving a graduate seminar on Millen...
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Unknown to all but a few, Newton was a practicing alchemist who dabbled with the occult, a tortured, obsessive character who searched for an understanding of the universe by whatever means possible. Sympathetic yet balanced, Michael White's Isaac Newton offers a revelatory picture of Newton as a genius who stood at the point in history where magic ended and science began.