| dc.description.abstract | Laws of nature are perceived as playing a central role in modern science. This thesis
investigates the introduction of laws of nature into natural philosophy in the
seventeenth century, from which modern science arguably evolved. Previous work
has indicated that René Descartes was responsible for single-handedly introducing a
mathematical concept of laws into physics under the form of ‘laws of nature’.
However, there is less agreement on the originality, causes and aftermath of this
manoeuvre. This thesis is sensitive to the circumstance that the introduction of ‘laws
of nature’ in the seventeenth century is a problem for us given our hindsight
perspective of the origins of modern science, not an explicit concern of the
actors; ‘laws of nature’ emerged as part of a network of problems and possibilities
converging in Descartes’ reform of natural philosophy. Then, the appropriation of his
laws was not an assessment of isolated statements on nature, but a process bounded
by critical stances towards the Cartesian enterprise involving theological and social
underpinnings. Accordingly, this thesis approaches ‘laws of nature’ as by-products of
the changing boundaries between mechanics, mathematics and natural philosophy in
the seventeenth century and interprets them as embedded within the circumstances
and interactions among the practitioners of these disciplines in which these laws
were introduced, criticised and appropriated.
Based on this approach, this thesis tracks the background of Descartes’s project of
reform of physics from the sixteenth-century fascination for machines that led to
codifications of mechanics as a mixed-mathematical science, generating quantitative
ways to design and fabricate physical (artificial) objects (Chapter 1). This approach
was picked up by Galileo, who transformed it to include natural motion. In so doing,
Galileo developed a mathematical approach to natural philosophy—a mathematical
science of motion—which ultimately relied on the physical assumption of the motion
of the Earth (Chapter 2). An alternative reorganization of mathematics and natural
philosophy was put forward by the Lutheran theologian Kepler, wh o considered that
the natural knowledge of the world may be founded a priori by deciphering the
archetypes that God followed when creating the world. His archetypal cosmology
provided a link between geometry and natural philosophy, involving mechanics
(Chapter 3). However, Descartes moved in a different direction. Instead of
connecting mathematics to natural philosophy, he tried to anchor both mathematics
and natural philosophy on certainty, claiming that matter is but extension and that a
few principles codified all possible interactions among parts of this geometrical
matter. These principles were three ‘laws of nature’ erected as foundations of an a
priori physics (Chapter 4). These ‘laws of nature’ received considerable attention in
England. Informed by local traditions, English writers rejected the causal role
attributed to laws but reworked their contents in laws of motion that were moved to
mechanics and extended to astronomy, in line with the local practices of the
‘elliptical astronomy’ (Chapter 5). The relocation of ‘laws of nature’ from physics to
mechanics was connected with English debates concerning the role of motion in
geometry. These discussions drew different consequences for the connections
between mathematics and nature (Chapter 6). In line with the English appropriation
of Descartes, the young Newton assumed laws of motion as mathematical
explanations in mechanics. When asked by Halley about orbital motion, his
answer displayed characteristics of the English disciplinary setting. However, in
connection with his historical studies, Newton realised that his laws of motion were
capable of accounting for the true system of the world and then they were
transformed into mathematical principles of natural philosophy, redrawing the
contours of mathematics, natural philosophy and mechanics. The most important
outcome of this reorganization—the law of gravitation—raised suspicions for going
beyond the boundaries of established practices in the Continent (Chapter 7).
The thesis concludes that ‘laws of nature’ did not emerge as a generic label
to denominate findings in science. On the contrary, they appeared as concrete
achievements with an operative function within Descartes’ reform of natural
philosophy and consequently embedded within a network of assumptions, traditions
and practices that were central to the appropriation of ‘laws of nature’. English
natural philosophers and mathematicians reworked these ‘laws of nature’ within
different disciplinary settings and put forward alternative ‘laws of motion’ in ways
not previously noticed. The picture that emerges is not that of an amalgamation of
previous meanings into a more complex one that was subsequently disseminated.
Instead of a unified concept of ‘laws of nature’, Descartes’ project triggered reactions
framed within local traditions and therefore it is hard to claim that at the end of the
seventeenth century there was any agreement on the meaning of ‘laws of nature’ or
even laws of motion beyond the narrow circles that shared disciplinary commitments
and values. It was during the appropriation of Newton in the eighteenth century that
his achievements and those honoured as his peers were labelled with a non-
Newtonian concept of ‘laws of nature’, creating a foundational myth of the origins of
modern science that reached up to the twentieth century. | en |
