"Cartesianism contra Attractionism: Morals from Malebranche and Fontenelle"
"Are Corpuscles Unobservable in Principle for Locke?"
Journal of the History of Philosophy (January 1992), 30(1):33-52.
Abstract from
Philosopher's Index: "The title question is distinguished into
two: (1) Did Locke 'believe' that corpuscles were unobservable
in principle? (2) Is there some Lockean principle which dictates that
corpuscles cannot possibly be
observed? Both questions are answered in the negative. Regarding the
first question, it is argued that a
close examination of the text best supports the conclusion that, while
Locke was pessimistic about the
likelihood of people actually coming to observe corpuscles, he did
think that in principle such observation
was not impossible. In answering the second question, the extant
arguments for in-principle unobservability
are shown to rest on principles which are not Lockean, for they lead
to radically unLockean conclusions.
Locke's philosophy would be seriously undermined by the assumption of
a principled divide between
unobservable corpuscles on the one side and observable ordinary
objects
on the other. Fortunately, Locke
is committed to no such division."
"Berkeley's Dynamical Instrumentalism."
PhD Dissertation, Princeton University, 1992.
Text
of Abstract from UMI/Proquest
Review of Daniel Garber's Descartes' Metaphysical Physics. Review of Metaphysics (September 1993), 47(1):146-147.
Review of Robert G. Muehlmann's Berkeley's Ontology. Journal of the History of Philosophy (April 1994), 32(2):309-311.
"Berkeley's Case Against Realism about Dynamics."
In Robert G. Muehlmann, ed., Berkeley's Metaphysics :
Structural, Interpretive, and
Critical Essays, pp. 197-214. University Park, Pa.: Pennsylvania State University
Press, 1995.
This essay was the winner in the third
annual Colin and Ailsa Turbayne International Berkeley Essay Prize
Competition (1992).
Review of Vere Chappell, ed.,
The Cambridge Companion to Locke.
Philosophical Review (January 1996), 105(1):120-122.
Stable URL:
http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0031-8108%28199601%29105%3A1%3C120%3A%3E2.0.CO%3B2-0
Text
of review from JSTOR
"Locke's Newtonianism and Lockean Newtonianism."Perspectives
on Science: Historical, Philosophical, Social (Fall 1997),
5(3):285-310.
"An early version of some of this
material was read at the first
conference for the
History of the Philosophy of Science, at Roanoke, Virginia,
in 1996."
" I explore Locke's complex attitude
toward the natural philosophy of his day by
focusing on (1) Locke's own treatment of Newton's theory of
gravity, and (2) the
presence of Lockean themes in defenses of Newtonian
attraction/gravity by
Maupertuis and other early Newtonians."
"The Status of Mechanism in Locke's Essay."
Philosophical Review (July 1998), 107(3):381-414.
Abstract from
Philosopher's Index:
"The paper addresses the question of the
nature of Locke's philosophical allegiance to mechanism (or
corpuscularianism) and offers a novel interpretation of his
primary/secondary quality distinction. It is argued
that Locke does not assume the truth of corpuscularianism and does not
take it as a starting point for
philosophizing. Rather, mechanism functions for Locke primarily as an
illustration of two fundamentally
metaphysical notions: real essence and primary quality.
Corpuscularianism provides an example of what the
primary qualities of bodies might be and what the real essences of
bodies might be like. Moreover,
because of it's naturalness, clarity, and explanatory potential,
mechanism provides a uniquely good
illustration, not just of these concepts, but also of Locke's
conception of 'scientia'."
Stable URL:
http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0031-8108%28199807%29107%3A3%3C381%3ATSOMIL%3E2.0.CO%3B2-G
Text
of article from JSTOR
"Berkeley." In Robert L. Arrington, ed., A Companion to the Philosophers, pp. 169-174. Blackwell Companions to Philosophy, 16. Malden, Mass.: Blackwell, 1999.
Review of Elmar J. Kremer's Interpreting Arnauld. Journal of the History of Philosophy (April 1999), 37(12):367-368.
"The Uses of Mechanism: Corpuscularianism in Drafts A and B of Locke's Essay." In Christoph Lüthy, John Emery Murdoch, and William R. Newman, eds., Late Medieval and Early Modern Corpuscular Matter Theories. Leiden & Boston: Brill, 2001.
"Berkeley." Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. URL: plato.stanford.edu
"Berkeley's Natural Philosophy and Philosophy of Science." In Kenneth Winkler, ed., The Cambridge Companion to Berkeley. Cambridge & New York: Cambridge University Press.
Empiricism and Newtonianism: Locke, Berkeley, and the Decline of
Strict Mechanism.
"Empiricism and Newtonianism provides a
philosophical analysis of the controversy over Newton's dynamics, in
particular his theory of gravity, as it was played out in the early
eighteenth century. This controversy was generated by the apparent
conflict between strict mechanism and Newton's appeal to attraction in his
Principia Mathematica. Strict mechanism, as established most notably by
Descartes and Boyle, asserts that bodies possess a very limited number of
qualities: size, shape, motion, and perhaps solidity. All other apparent
qualities of bodies are held to be reducible to this very short list of
primary qualities. Thus understood, bodies are fundamentally passive.
Indeed, strict mechanism specifically maintains that bodies cannot be
characterized as intrinsically possessing any active qualities. Now, what
should count as an active quality was to some extent a disputed question,
but minimally strict mechanism rules out attributing to bodies any ability
to self-move, to cause new motion, to attract, to repel, or to act in any
way at a distance. Newton's dynamics faced opposition and provoked
foundational debate precisely because it was interpreted as supporting a
dynamic conception of nature in conflict with the tenets of strict
mechanism.
The book focuses especially on those defenders of Newton who
sought to sever the philosophical foundations that had been supplied for
strict mechanism and so to eliminate grounds for criticizing Newtonian
gravity. They did so primarily, not by straightforwardly arguing for a
dynamic conception of nature, but rather by arguing for a separation
between physics and metaphysics, and, in parallel, connecting scientific
explanation to the establishment of regularity or law-likeness rather than
to the identification of causes (both doctrines traditionally associated
with twentieth-century positivism). It is this Newtonian strategy that
lies at the heart of the book. Thus, one main aim of the book is to
provide a philosophical understanding of a crucial moment in the history
of modern western philosophy and science, a moment where physics and
metaphysics are pushed apart. In the course of doing so, I accomplish the
second main aim of the book, which is to provide an original account of
the natural philosophy and philosophy of science of Locke and Berkeley.
Treating Locke in this context reveals the limited nature of Locke's
commitment to mechanism, and enables an understanding of his historical
influence on Newtonianism. Here I shed some light on what Alexander Koyré
has enigmatically described as the "curious mingling" of Newtonianism with
Locke's philosophy in the eighteenth century. Placing Berkeley in this
context permits a proper appreciation of both the strength of his
instrumentalist philosophy of science and its status as a response to the
contemporary Newtonian problem; Berkeley's De Motu, I argue, provides the
early eighteenth century's most powerful and coherent case for separating
physics from metaphysics and reconstruing scientific explanation."
"Occasionalism and Strict Mechanism: Malebranche, Berkeley, Fontenelle." In Christia Mercer and Eileen O'Neill, eds., The History of Early Modern Philosophy: Essays in Honor of Margaret Dauler Wilson.
Review of Peter Anstey's The Philosophy of Robert Boyle. British Journal for the History of Philosophy.
"Robert Boyle." In Steven Nadler, ed., Companion to Early Modern Philosophy. Malden, Mass. & Oxford: Blackwell.
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