Newtonianism
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Newtonianism is the doctrine of following the principles and making use of the methods of the natural philosopher Isaac Newton. Newtonianism was an enormously influential intellectual program during the 18th-century Enlightenment, and arguably continues to be so to this day. This doctrine can be and often was and still is contrasted with two or more alternative sets of principles and methods: Cartesianism, Leibnizianism, Wolffianism. [1] [2]
The followers of Newton tried to apply Newtonian principles far outside the fields for which Newton had intended them, e.g. the study of electricity, biology, medicine and even theology. David Hume, for one, was keen to make use of Newtonian experimental principles in the examination of moral subjects, while the Newtonian Colin Maclaurin wrote an MA thesis on the application of the calculus in morality.
[edit] Notes
- ^ The Discovery of the Conservation of Energy, Yehuda Elkana, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1974; Introduction: Philosophical Background pp. 1-22
- ^ The Newtonian-Wolffian Controversy: 1740-1759, Ronald S. Calinger, Journal of the History of Ideas, Vol. 30, No. 3 (Jul. - Sep., 1969), pp. 319-330. Retrieved on 2008-03-26.
