Gideon Freudenthal

Perpetuum mobile: the Leibniz-Papin controversy

Abstract ‘Controversy’ is here introduced as a technical term referring to one aspect of dispute. ‘Controversy’ is here understood as referring to an ongoing antagonistic exchange over a disagreement that cannot be readily resolved by the means at hand. However, the issue is being discussed because the participants believe that the controversy will be resolveable in the framework of a more advanced view which will be generated by the dispute. It is claimed that this ‘controversy’ merits study; it is not claimed that a dispute can be reduced to this aspect. In fact, it is shown that the dispute studied here involved intrigues in which personal and national prejudices served as weapons. The historical case study is a controversy conducted between G. W. Leibniz and Denis Papin. The first topic of the controversy, which began in 1689 and ended in 1691, was the ‘measure of force’, but it soon extended also to fundamental issues of mechanics and science in general: to the epistemological status of conservation laws, to the nature of abstractions in science etc. The study shows that far from being a ‘logomachia’, the ‘vis viva controversy’ reflected two exclusive legitimate interpretations of the conceptual system involved and enhanced both of them, preparing their ‘Aufhebung’ in a more elaborate and comprehensive system. An English translation of a not-yet published ‘Synopsis Controversiae’ by Denis Papin with annotations by Leibniz is attached as an appendix.

Pluralism or Relativism

Elkanas paper “Two-Tier Thinking” (1978) contains the thesis that became the foundation of all his later work. This thesis is best summarized by the author himself: The thesis of this paper is that this distinction [between realists and relativists] is not a logical necessity but a historical situation in Western scientific culture. It is claimed here that the distinction is spurious: every problem has a realist and a relativist dimension, and the two views can be, and are actually being, held simultaneously. Once a frame of reference has been selected, in it realism prevails. With respect to selection of an appropriate framework the approach has to be relativist since there is no absolute, external-to-all framework which would fit absolute realism. (Elkana 1978, 309)

Adam Smith's analytic-synthetic method and the ‘system of natural liberty’

Abstract In the present paper I shall deal with Adam Smiths application of the analytic-synthetic method, which he considered to be the scientific method par excellence. I shall concentrate on some shortcomings in Smiths arguments and endeavour to explain them as resulting from a particular interpretation of the aforesaid method. The peculiarity of Smiths interpretation was that he omitted the analysis and that he thought the synthesis reflects the composition of an object out of pre-existing elements which are endowed with ‘essential qualities’. I shall then try to show that this methodological concept presupposed the view that society is a compound of independent individuals, i.e. an aggregate of Robinson Crusoes. Finally I shall discuss possible political reasons for this view. On the systematic level, I shall argue that political and scientific partisanship do not necessarily stand in contradiction to objective knowledge, and on the historical level, I shall plead for a ‘Social History of Ideas’.1

The Hessen-Grossman Thesis: An Attempt at Rehabilitation

The work of Boris Hessen and Henryk Grossman on the emergence of early modern science is an attempt at a historical sociology of science and a historical epistemology of scientific knowledge. One of their theses is elaborated here, namely that early modern mechanics developed in the study of contemporary technology. In particular I discuss the thesis that the replacement of the Aristotelian concept of motion by the modern general and mathematical concept developed in the study of transmission machines. In addition to a discussion of the thesis and its implications, I also present a case study to substantiate the thesis. I show that Benedettis famous refutation of Aristotle and his introduction of a new concept of motion depended on empirical knowledge of the newly invented treadle mechanism. I argue that although the historiography of science since the 1930s has explored many of the individual issues first raised by the Marxist historians of science, this perspective remains unique in that it establishes direct and informative connections between the grand narrative of the transition from agrarian-feudal society to industrial production in early capitalism and the development of science and technology down to specific cognitive issues such as shared assumptions concerning the natural order.

Moses Mendelssohn: Iconoclast

Two generations after Mendelssohn’s death, Heinrich Heine compared his reform of Judaism as analogous to Luther’s revolt against Catholicism.

Concept and Inference: Descartes and Beeckman on the Fall of Bodies

The discovery of the law of free fall is usually considered to be a milestone in the development of modern physics and a major step in superseding medieval ways of thought. The subject of the law is the relation between the space traversed by a falling body and the time elapsed. The law states that under certain conditions the spaces traversed measured from rest are proportional to the squares of the times elapsed.

Maimon’s Subversion of Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason: There are no Synthetic a priori Judgments in Physics

Maimon characterized his philosophical position as “rational dogmatism and empirical skepticism” (Tr, II, 436). In this paper I concentrate on the latter half of this description, and argue that Maimon’s empirical skepticism subverts and jeopardizes Kant’s project in the Critique of Pure Reason.1

Marx's Critique of Economic Reason

In this paper I argue first that Marxs Critique of Political Economy employs “critique” in the Kantian meaning of the term—i.e., determining the domain of legitimate application of the categories involved and maintaining that outside these borders understanding is led into error and entangled in metaphysics. According to Marx, his predecessors in political economy transgressed these boundaries of application, and therefore conceived of all different modes of production as being essentially similar to commodity production, and thus implied that commodity production and the bourgeois form of life corresponding to it are “natural” not historical and transitory. In Marxs conception there are no super-historical economic categories or laws. I argue moreover that Marxs methodology of reconstructing the “development” of socioeconomic entities and categories from their “germ” or “cell” also serves his critical intention. Whereas social theorists of the time referred with organic metaphors to human collectives (“family,” “community,” etc.), Marx referred with such metaphors to economic entities only (“commodity,”“money,” etc.). The difference is crucial, since the first carries deterministic consequences for the development of society while the latter does not: Social form and historical development in Marx are contingent and not necessary, historical and not natural, transitory and not eternal. I also stress that Marxs procedure of critique is internal. He uses only such assumptions, observations, and arguments as could in principle also be used by the scholars criticized. Nevertheless the outcome of the critique is not merely a new theory but an entirely different one — i.e., a historical conception of the discipline of political economy and of its laws.

Conservation and Contrariety: The Logical Foundations of Cartesian Physics

The general theory of matter presented by Descartes in the second book of the Principia Philosophiae is the first well founded systematic physical theory of modern science; for it explicitly introduces the logical presuppositions necessary for a system of causal explanations of physical phenomena using equations. While it is true that Descartes himself takes very little advantage of the possibilities created by the introduction of these prerequisites (there is, for instance, very little mathematics, no formal equations, and few proportions in the Principia itself), he nonetheless determines basic requirements of such a system of explanations and provides conceptual instruments adequate for the formation of such a physical theory.

Proofs and Paradoxes: Free Fall and Projectile Motion in Galileo’s Physics

According to a well established view the work of Galileo marks the beginning of classical mechanics.1 His work does not yet represent the full fledged classical theory as it emerged in the contributions of Newton and others, but, following this widespread interpretation, Galileo did take the first decisive steps: he criticized and overcame the traditional Aristotelian world picture, he introduced the experimental method, he concentrated on a systematic and concise description of single phenomena rather than searching for their causes and elaborating an overarching philosophy of nature, and he succeeded in the mathematical analysis of some of the key problems of classical mechanics.2