Newton

Andrew Janiak

• Publisher: Wiley-Blackwell
• Year: 2015
• ISBN:
  9781118326725
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Philosophy
• Subtopic: Philosophy & Ethics in Science

Newton is an evocative intellectual history of the life and ideas of Isaac Newton the natural philosopher, covering his influential thoughts about philosophical problems, our knowledge of nature, and even the nature of the divine.

• Offers a comprehensive and highly accessible introduction to the life and ideas of Isaac Newton, emphasizing his influential contributions to the field of philosophy
• Covers the principal philosophical topics that captivated Newton's mind, from our knowledge of nature to the nature of the divine
• Includes the most recent and innovative research regarding Newton's views on theology and philosophy
• Emphasizes the philosophical importance of Newton's work to the history of philosophy and his engagement with the ideas of both historic and contemporary figures such as Galileo and Descartes, Leibniz and Locke

chapter 1
life and times

If one picks up a book about Isaac Newton, one expects to find a character conforming to the legend. One expects to encounter a mathematician who invented calculus and employed its great analytical power for understanding natural phenomena. One expects to find a scientist who ignored the philosophical and metaphysical preoccupations of his predecessors, focusing on experimental and mathematical questions that form the nucleus of modern physics. One expects to learn of a rational thinker who scorned the religious superstitions and practices of his day, portending a new secular age in which science would reign as the surest route to knowledge of the natural world. But historians of science have long since recognized the profound gap between Newton the legend and Newton the actual historical figure (Cohen and Smith 2002, 1–6). As biographers of Newton have often suggested, one reason for this gap is that Newton was actually much more exercised about religion, theology, philosophy, and even alchemy than one would expect (Dobbs 1975, Manuel 1968, Westfall 1980). There is, however, a deeper reason for the gap, one connected intimately to the proper methodology for studying the history of science and philosophy: Newton lived in an era that is profoundly different from our own in the way that it organized human knowledge. Like his contemporaries, Newton thought about science and religion, theology and philosophy, nature and God in ways that are strikingly peculiar to any twenty-first century reader. Indeed, his thinking was different enough that he lacked any such categories, as did his contemporaries: the early moderns organized human knowledge in a way that is profoundly foreign to us. It is always a struggle to come to understand the work of any genius. But in Newton’s case, we have the additional challenge of coming to understand his age.

Newton lived in tumultuous times. When he was born on Christmas Day in 1642, the historically stable British monarchy with centuries of tradition underpinning it was in crisis. A civil war had broken out, one that would lead to fundamental political and social change within the next two decades. By the time Newton was a young man, England had undergone not only civil war and a political revolution, but also the beheading of the King, the bloody rule of Oliver Cromwell, and the Restoration of the monarchy in 1660. These events had a deep impact on the most important philosophers working while Newton was a young man: in 1659, in a preface to one of his most important works on experiments with his air pump, Robert Boyle wrote of “the strange confusions of this unhappy nation” (Boyle 1999, vol. 1: 145). The revolution in politics and society was accompanied by equally profound developments in intellectual life. When Newton enrolled in Trinity College, Cambridge, in 1660, a traditional curriculum was still in place, but adventurous and talented students were directed to read the great moderns of the day, who were overthrowing the Scholastic tradition that had reigned for centuries in Europe’s great universities. Many of the moderns were Newton’s countrymen, including Thomas Hobbes, Robert Boyle, and Henry More, the latter being a friend of Newton’s family and a key leader of the Cambridge Platonist movement in midcentury. Newton avidly read their works, along with the latest writings from philosophers on the Continent, especially Descartes and the Dutch mathematician Christiaan Huygens (McGuire and Tamny 1983). The political and intellectual spheres came together early in Newton’s life with the founding of the Royal Society in London in 1662, which had the imprimatur of King Charles II. It would become the model for scientific societies throughout Europe in the next generation. Newton’s career would parallel the rise of the Royal Society: he sent his earliest papers, on optics, to the Society for publication in its Philosophical Transactions in the 1670s; published his magnum opus, Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica (Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy) through the Society in 1687; and would eventually become its president in 1703. By the time of Newton’s death in 1727, England and its political and intellectual life were fundamentally different than they were at the time of his youth, and Newton played as central a role in transforming the intellectual and cultural life of his country as any other figure. Although he is usually mentioned along with Robert Boyle and Charles Darwin as one of England’s three greatest scientists, he might also be listed along with Milton and Shakespeare, for his impact on British intellectual life in the early modern period was deep and lasting. Scientists, philosophers, mathematicians and even theologians spent much of the eighteenth century digesting, furthering, and criticizing Newton’s work. He played the kind of role that Kant played in nineteenth-century German-speaking philosophy: everyone worked in his wake.

Isaac Newton himself lived a somewhat tumultuous life. The tumult resulted from early tragedies in his family: his father died a few months before he was born and he spent much of his childhood away from his mother. Contradictions emerged later: an intensely private person who shunned public controversies from his earliest days, he was also a recognized public intellectual, a knight of the British Empire who not only presided over the Royal Society but also sought a seat in Parliament (representing Cambridge) and served in London in the politically influential post of Warden of the Mint. A founder of what we now call modern mathematical physics, he was also a deeply religious man with numerous—often deeply heterodox—opinions on biblical chronology, the history of Christianity, and theological doctrine, including the nature and status of the Trinity.¹ Although anti-Trinitarianism was illegal due to the Blasphemy Act of 1648, Newton embraced it privately, providing hints to friends like the philosopher John Locke in the early 1690s and the philosopher–theologian Samuel Clarke in his later years. He agonized over finding the proper interpretation of scripture and of Christianity’s most complex doctrines. Newton’s Nachlass² includes not only hundreds of pages of work in mathematics, optics, and natural philosophy but also numerous manuscripts dealing with alchemical experiments and the history of alchemical thought and thousands of pages of theological materials from every decade of Newton’s life³: a complex man, indeed.

Newton’s immense impact on science and society, and his immensely complicated personality, transcends the capacity of any one volume to capture it. Blackwell Great Minds is devoted to the history of philosophy. If we employ the history of early modern philosophy as the lens through which to view Newton’s work, what picture emerges? Newton was not a systematic philosopher: although he read a number of systematic philosophical treatises, including Descartes’s Meditations, he never wrote one. But he did in fact develop and defend a wide range of philosophical views. He did so primarily in reaction to the many controversies that his publications, ideas, and methods generated from his earliest work in the 1670s until the end of his life in the first third of the eighteenth century. Hence, the focus in this book is on Newton’s philosophical debates and discussions with other thinkers—including, especially, Descartes and his followers, Huygens, Locke, and finally Leibniz and his followers. The philosophically salient aspects of Newton’s life can be broken into three stages for simplicity’s sake: the early years, circa 1660–1680; the middle period, circa 1680–1700; and the late years, 1700–1727. Each of these periods involved substantial philosophical output in reaction to substantive debates.

The early period took place largely in Cambridge. After finishing his studies as an undergraduate at Trinity College, Cambridge in 1665, Newton did considerable work in mathematics (and other areas), rising to become the second Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at the University of Cambridge in 1669 (the first holder of the chair was his teacher, Isaac Barrow). His required course of lectures as Lucasian Professor includes some important reflections on mathematics and natural philosophy. During the 1670s, he also made lasting contributions to experimental optics that helped solidify his reputation in England and abroad. The debates about methodology prompted by his optical writings prefigured an important aspect of Newton’s lifelong philosophical work, especially the issue of whether hypotheses or other kinds of speculation should be embraced in philosophy.

In the middle period, the 1680s–1690s, Newton made huge advances in natural philosophy, culminating in the publication of his magnum opus, Principia Mathematica, in 1687. During this period, Newton befriended John Locke and had several important philosophical exchanges with various figures, including G.W. Leibniz (the German philosopher and mathematician) and Richard Bentley (a London theologian and later the long-serving Master of Trinity College). By the turn of the new century, Newtonianism was a powerful intellectual force in England and was soon to be one on the Continent. But it remained highly controversial.

The final period of Newton’s life was focused on developing his philosophy and on defending it against its numerous critics. The most dramatic moment in this period came in 1715, when Leibniz articulated several powerful philosophical objections to Newtonianism in a series of letters sent to Princess Caroline of Wales and through her to Samuel Clarke (who was then a member of Newton’s circle in London). This ignited a major cross-Channel debate that precipitated the Leibniz–Clarke correspondence, perhaps the most influential philosophical exchange of the entire eighteenth century. Controversy did not subside with Newton’s death: in the following decades, the Leibnizian and Newtonian systems had displaced Cartesianism as the major philosophical orientations of Europe and the debate between them continued throughout the rest of the century. Émilie du Châtelet wrote an important treatise, Institutions de Physique (1740), which attempted to mediate the dispute between Leibniz and Newton, and in his Critique of Pure Reason (1781), Immanuel Kant continued that general project with his groundbreaking work. The shadow of Isaac Newton was long indeed.

1.1 Background and Childhood

In a small town in Lincolnshire, England, Hannah Newton gave birth to her son Isaac early on Christmas morning in 1642.⁴ The fact that he was born on Christmas obviously became the stuff of legend. Isaac was apparently in a very weak condition when he was born—it took a full week before he was baptized, on the first day of the New Year. Although he would eventually rise to become the world’s greatest natural philosopher, his early years were marked by tragedy. Isaac’s father and namesake had died while Hannah was 6 months pregnant, so the two never met. What kind of effect this fact had on Newton’s upbringing has been the subject of intense speculation over the years.⁵ It may have helped shape Isaac’s lifelong inability to maintain friendships he had formed. Luckily for Hannah and the young Isaac, his father left a modest estate including a manor house and a flock of roughly 200 sheep, which was above average for this part of the English countryside. The Newtons therefore were far from wealthy, and were certainly not aristocracy, but the family was in a stable financial position during Isaac’s youth. This stability, however, was soon torn by another event: when he was just 3, his mother, Hannah, remarried and left him in the care of his maternal grandmother. He would not live with his mother again until he was 11, so his formative years were spent without either of his parents. Nonetheless, Hannah was a resourceful person, for her second marriage, to the Reverend Barnabas Smith, greatly increased the family’s wealth and helped to secure Isaac’s future. We can only speculate about the challenge she faced in helping her family at the cost of living apart from her young son. For his part, the elder Newton recalled feeling great anger during his youth.

Despite Hannah’s finances, it seems that few in her family had received any formal education. Indeed, it appears that Isaac’s father could not write his own name.⁶ But things would be different for the young Isaac. His mother arranged for him to attend the Grantham School, where the influential Cambridge Platonist Henry More had also gone as a boy (one of Newton’s teachers was More’s former student). He enrolled at age 12 and lived with the nearby apothecary—he thus lived apart from his mother again after just a year together. He presumably studied mostly Latin and almost certainly no mathematics at Grantham, and he would have devoted substantial time to Bible study. Although he learned no mathematics and no natural philosophy at this time, both of which were flourishing in England and on the Continent in this period, his knowledge of Latin and of scripture would serve him throughout the rest of his life. More immediately...