Primary and Secondary Causation in Samuel Clarke's and Isaac Newton's Theories of Gravity

Bibliographic Data

ID3386706
AuthorsJohn Henry (0000-0002-4479-9163)
Year2020
Volume111
Issue3
Pages542-561
Publication date2020-09-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueIsis (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0021-1753 • E-ISSN: 1545-6994
PublisherUniversity of Chicago Press (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1086/710320
OpenAlexW3087322889
LanguageEN
Citations received5
References cited31

Samuel Clarke is best known to historians of science for presenting Isaac Newton’s views to a wider audience, especially in his famous correspondence with G. W. Leibniz. Clarke’s independent writings, however, reveal positions that do not derive from, and do not coincide with, Newton’s. This essay compares Clarke’s and Newton’s ideas on the cause of gravity, with a view to clarifying our understanding of Newton’s views. There is evidence to suggest that Newton believed God was directly responsible for gravity, and this interpretation has been promoted by a number of scholars. By comparing Newton’s views with those of Clarke, however, it can be seen that Newton did not subscribe to the kind of occasionalist approach to gravity that Clarke developed. Clarke insisted that matter was categorically incapable of being endowed with powers or forces and that therefore what looks like gravitational attraction has to be performed directly by God or by angels. By comparing Clarke’s pronouncements with Newton’s, it becomes clear that Newton adopted the more standard line: that the first cause, God, operated in nature through secondary causes and that gravitational attraction was just such a secondary (albeit occult) cause

Causation · Classical mechanics · Epistemology · Gravitation · Interpretation (philosophy · Newton's law of universal gravitation · Physics · Diverse Historical and Scientific Studies · Historical Philosophy and Science · History of Science and Natural History · Philosophy

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