Abstract: The Principles of Philosophy summarized Descartes' metaphysics before turning to physics. The rules of impact were introduced and motion defined in a way that distanced Descartes from the hypothesis of terrestrial motion. His crucial claim that corporeal substance and space are indistinguishable was inadequately defended. ‘The Physics Made Public’ emphasizes that, apart from the conceptual difficulties, Descartes' physics was hard to perform calculations with. It had no measure of resistance and did not mention mass. More importantly, it had striking drawbacks as a theory of gravity. The part of Descartes' philosophy held back the longest and released most carefully turned out to be the part that was superseded most quickly.
Publication Year: 2001
Publication Date: 2001-01-18
Language: en
Type: book-chapter
Indexed In: ['crossref']
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