Ebook: What was Mechanical about Mechanics: The Concept of Force between Metaphysics and Mechanics from Newton to Lagrange

The Age of Reason is left the Dark Ages of the history of mechanics. Clifford A. Truesdell) 1. 1 THE INVISIBLE TRUTH OF CLASSICAL PHYSICS There are some questions that physics since the days of Newton simply cannot an­ swer. Perhaps the most important of these can be categorized as 'questions of eth­ ics', and 'questions of ultimate meaning'. The question of humanity's place in the cosmos and in nature is pre-eminently a philosophical and religious one, and physics seems to have little to contribute to answering it. Although physics claims to have made very fundamental discoveries about the cosmos and nature, its concern is with the coherence and order of material phenomena rather than with questions of mean­ ing. Now and then thinkers such as Stephen Hawking or Fritjof Capra emerge, who appear to claim that a total world-view can be derived from physics. Generally, however, such authors do not actually make any great effort to make good on their claim to completeness: their answers to questions of meaning often pale in compari­ 2 son with their answers to conventional questions in physics. Moreover, to the extent that they do attempt to answer questions of meaning, it is easy to show that they 3 draw on assumptions from outside physics.

---

The great debates of the 18th century about the true measure of living force and the principle of least action, etc., can only be understood in depth if we realize that, at that time, mechanics was more than just mechanics. From Newton and Leibniz to Euler, Maupertuis, d'Alembert, and Lagrange, there was a metaphysical dimension to the pertinent issues, albeit partly at an implicit level. This gave the debates their typical flavor and texture, and influenced their outcomes deeply. On an explicit level, there was a progressive rejection of the traditional metaphysical approach to the foundations of mechanics. This was accompanied by profound conceptual changes in mechanics, away from force conceived as a substance, like water, and toward force conceived as a relationship between the elements in a structure of space and time. Thus these controversies helped to turn mechanics into the discipline we recognize today.

---

The great debates of the 18th century about the true measure of living force and the principle of least action, etc., can only be understood in depth if we realize that, at that time, mechanics was more than just mechanics. From Newton and Leibniz to Euler, Maupertuis, d'Alembert, and Lagrange, there was a metaphysical dimension to the pertinent issues, albeit partly at an implicit level. This gave the debates their typical flavor and texture, and influenced their outcomes deeply. On an explicit level, there was a progressive rejection of the traditional metaphysical approach to the foundations of mechanics. This was accompanied by profound conceptual changes in mechanics, away from force conceived as a substance, like water, and toward force conceived as a relationship between the elements in a structure of space and time. Thus these controversies helped to turn mechanics into the discipline we recognize today.
Content:
Front Matter....Pages i-xvi
Introduction....Pages 1-29
Front Matter....Pages 31-31
Force like Water....Pages 32-69
Leibniz: Force as the Essence of Substance....Pages 70-102
Front Matter....Pages 103-103
From Cause to Phenomenon....Pages 104-133
From Efficient to Final Causes: The Origin of the Principle of Least Action....Pages 134-171
Front Matter....Pages 173-173
The Concept of Force in the 1779 Berlin Essay Competition....Pages 174-206
Lagrange’s Concept of Force....Pages 207-227
Metaphysics Concealed....Pages 229-239
Back Matter....Pages 241-280

---

The great debates of the 18th century about the true measure of living force and the principle of least action, etc., can only be understood in depth if we realize that, at that time, mechanics was more than just mechanics. From Newton and Leibniz to Euler, Maupertuis, d'Alembert, and Lagrange, there was a metaphysical dimension to the pertinent issues, albeit partly at an implicit level. This gave the debates their typical flavor and texture, and influenced their outcomes deeply. On an explicit level, there was a progressive rejection of the traditional metaphysical approach to the foundations of mechanics. This was accompanied by profound conceptual changes in mechanics, away from force conceived as a substance, like water, and toward force conceived as a relationship between the elements in a structure of space and time. Thus these controversies helped to turn mechanics into the discipline we recognize today.
Content:
Front Matter....Pages i-xvi
Introduction....Pages 1-29
Front Matter....Pages 31-31
Force like Water....Pages 32-69
Leibniz: Force as the Essence of Substance....Pages 70-102
Front Matter....Pages 103-103
From Cause to Phenomenon....Pages 104-133
From Efficient to Final Causes: The Origin of the Principle of Least Action....Pages 134-171
Front Matter....Pages 173-173
The Concept of Force in the 1779 Berlin Essay Competition....Pages 174-206
Lagrange’s Concept of Force....Pages 207-227
Metaphysics Concealed....Pages 229-239
Back Matter....Pages 241-280
....