Rationalist Foundations and the Science of Motion

This chapter is a new account of conceptual foundations for mechanics in post-Leibnizian Prussia: the ontology of body, the metaphysics of space and time, and the fundamental laws of dynamics. Three conclusions emerge. First, mechanics then was far from Newtonian. Rather, over seven decades it came to crystallize into three distinct paradigms; just one of them counts as Newtonian. Second, Leibniz turns out to have influenced dynamics to a degree so far unappreciated. Third, in this age mathematized mechanics and natural philosophy begin to drift apart. The former keeps growing in depth and scope, yet without regard to philosophical foundations. And the latter continues to develop foundational pictures increasingly detached from the state of science at the time.