What Is Newton's Law of Inertia About? Philosophical Reasoning and Explanation in Newton'sPrincipia

Bibliographic Data

ID5153633
AuthorsBernd Ludwig (0000-0003-3599-2081, corresponding author)
Year1992
Volume5
Issue1
Pages139-163
Publication date1992-01-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueScience in Context (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0269-8897 • E-ISSN: 1474-0664
PublisherCambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1017/s0269889700001113
OpenAlexW2006606114
LanguageEN
Citations received2
References cited9

The ArgumentIn this paper it will be shown that Newton'sPrincipiagives an explication of and an argument for the first Law of Motion, that seems to be outside the scope of today's philosophy of science but was familiar to seventeenth-century commentators: The foundation of classical mechanics is possible only by recurrence to results of a successful technical practice. Laws of classical mechanics gain their meaning as well as their claims to validity only when considered as statements about artifacts whose production belongs to the shared know-how of a scientific community

Classical mechanics · Epistemology · Explication · Gravitation · Inertia · Newton's law of universal gravitation · Newton's laws of motion · Physics · Chemistry · Computer Science · Historical Philosophy and Science · History of Science and Medicine · Law · Philosophy · Philosophy and History of Science

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