March, Eleanor (2025) "the logical sequence of his Principles": Understanding Du Châtelet on Newton's law of gravitation in the Principia. [Preprint]

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Abstract

Émilie Du Châtelet (1706-1749) is perhaps equally well-known for her magnum opus, the Institutions de Physique of 1740, and for her later French translation of and commentary to Newton's Principia (first published posthumously in 1756, with the corrected edition in 1759). One of the few topics which Du Châtelet addresses in detail in both the Institutions de Physique (chapter 15) and the commentary to her translation is Newton's arguments for his law of gravitation in the Principia. To date, however, no systematic comparison of the two has been undertaken (and very little has been said on either of them separately). I reconstruct and compare these two accounts. This offers a new perspective on Du Châtelet's developing thinking on the justification of Newton's law of gravitation within the Newtonian system.

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Item Type:	Preprint
Creators:	Creators Email ORCID March, Eleanor eleanor.march@balliol.ox.ac.uk
Keywords:	Du Châtelet, Newtonian gravity, Newton, Principia
Subjects:	General Issues > History of Philosophy of Science
Depositing User:	Eleanor March
Date Deposited:	12 Jan 2025 13:53
Last Modified:	12 Jan 2025 13:53
Item ID:	24524
Subjects:	General Issues > History of Philosophy of Science
Date:	10 January 2025
URI:	https://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/id/eprint/24524

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