Today's topics are Newton and the Newtonian Worldview. You have to understand that Newton
and his position the 18th century and 19th
century was something exceptional in the
history of science. He was revered to such
a degree that probably no other scientist
has ever been revered as him. When he died in 1727, the famous English poet Alexander
Pope wrote a famous epitaph on Newton.
It goes like this: Nature and Nature’s Laws
lay hid in Night: God said,
“Let Newton be!” and all was Light.
This was not only Pope's opinion. It was commonplace: he was compared to the biblical Moses
because you see it was believed that God
gave Moses the laws of morality, the laws
of behaviour, and to Newton he gave the
laws of nature. You have a nice parallel
here. You have Moses and you have Newton! As a result of this you can imagine that he
was given a semi-divine status and, what
often happens, this gets exaggerated.
This whole process started while he was alive.
I'm going to give you a few
eighteenth-century engravings. This one
is from the 1711 and on this engraving
you have Isaac Newton here as a source
of light and knowledge. This one is
probably one of the most famous
engravings. It is from the book by
Voltaire in 1738. You see the 
divine light of knowledge shines
through Newton - this is Newton - and 
is reflected to Voltaire who writes
everything down because he presents the
principles of the Newtonian philosophy.
Here's another one, another engraving
from another frontispiece. Here Newton is
portrayed as the goddess of wisdom. 
Why goddess, I have no idea!
Now goddess of wisdom Minerva holds 
Newtonian drawings - they are all over
the place. So there you have it.
Newton, the divine Newton, as a result
of this, he and his views have
been ascribed many things that have nothing 
to do with either of Newton or the Newtonian
worldview. This is what always happens when
you keep exaggerating things. These five
that I'm going to give you are among the
most famous myths on Newton and the Newtonian
science. Here the first one: "Newtonian 
science liberated itself from religion."
Number 2: "Newtonian science completely rejected astrology".
No.3: "Newtonian science united terrestrial and celestial physics."
No.4: "Newtonian science opened up the closed or finite universe - it made the universe infinite."
and finally number 5,
"Newtonian science was the first to employ
the scientific method."
And you know what they mean when they say "the scientific method" - they mean the contemporary one.
Tell me, any of these holds water?
At this stage you have enough knowledge
to tell me why the last one is incorrect.
(Student) "Because there
are other scientific methods before the
hypothetico-deductive method." (Hakob) This is
true, but if we focus on the hypothetico-
deductive method itself, would this be true?
(Student) "Descartes had used it." (Hakob) Very good!
Hypothetico-deductive method had been part
of the Cartesian mosaic long before Newton.
So you cannot say Newton was the first to
employ that method. Now let's consider
the other ones. What about the rest?
Newtonian mosaic was accepted
until around 1920. In Britain it was
accepted since around 1700, you know this,
and on the continent, it was accepted
since around 1740s. There is an
exception to this. We have new data
showing that some parts of the Newtonian
worldview had been accepted on the
continent since around 1720s, in particular 
in the Dutch Republic. By the way,
it needs to be said
that this mosaic by the time it got
replaced by the contemporary worldview
General Relativity and other things, it had
undergone so many transitions that Newtonian
mosaic in the early 20th century had very
little in common with the Newtonian
mosaic of the 1800's. The reason why we
present this as a single worldview is
that they share the same fundamental
assumptions. But specific theories were
quite different.
By the early 20th century you wouldn't
have many of these theories. Now what are the
elements of this mosaic? In the center
you have a Newtonian physics then you
have Phlogiston chemistry then you have
Theory of Preformation, Linaean biology,
physiology and psychology, history,
mathematics, hypothetico-deductive
method, Keplerian astronomy and then
you have theology which should be really
surprising to people who believe that
Newtonian science liberated itself from
religion.  Yes, this is how it liberated
itself from religion by having theology
in the most visible place! How do we know
this? There's certain evidence for that.
I'm going to give you a hint as to how
historians study these things.
First things first,
definition! What is theology? Theology is
the study of God and the relations
between God, mankind, and the universe. It
was believed that there are two types of
theology. One is called revealed theology.
This is the branch of theology that
concerns with inferring God's existence
and attributes exclusively from God's
act of self revelation. Essentially this
is the theology that is based on holy
texts, supposed acts of self-revelation.
And here you have natural theology.
This is a branch of theology
concerning with inferring God's existence
and attributes by means of reason
unaided by God's act of self-revelation.
So when people like Descartes and
others try to infer God's existence and his
attributes not from the holy texts
but independent of cases of
revelation. When you try to say something
about God by studying the world around
you that would be an instance of natural
theology. And now you can say "Hakob, how do
you know that any of this was part of
the mosaic? We have reasons to
believe: there are textbooks, there are
university curricula, and there
are encyclopedias. Luckily the 18th century
gave us two big encyclopedias.
There is the French Encyclopedia and
there is Encyclopedia Britannica.
I'm going to give you the French one. Here we
have the system of Human Sciences
divided based on our three major
faculties: memoire,
raison, imagination. Now in
imagination you have all sorts of
literature. In memory you have
history, natural history and social history.
We are interested in this one: reason, and
here you have theology, science of God
among other things, among natural
sciences, humanities, metaphysics. If I
zoom in here, then immediately what do you see?
Natural theology and revealed theology.
They are both part of the science of
time. This classification, just for
your future reference,
includes not only things that were
accepted but also things that were
rejected. So this gives you an overall
classification of everything that human
beings had known, so  you have to refer to 
their individual articles within the
Encyclopedia to actually see how these
supposed branches of science were
actually treated. And if you refer to
individual articles it becomes obvious
that both natural theology and revealed
theology remained in the mosaic.
What was never accepted are these things 
here: divination and black magic.
They were never accepted.
Even in the Aristotelian worldview this
was never part of the mainstream science.
So in terms of exiling theology from
the mosaic, it did happen but it happened only
in the 20th century and in some cases it
happened in a 19th century but not in the
18th century, OK? So you can't say the
Newtonian science liberated itself from
religion: No! Theology continued to remain
part of that science for a very good chunk
of time.
All right! Now, what about astrology? Again,
let's continue with the same diagram.
If we look at the bottom of that diagram,
among physical sciences here you see
zoology, you see meteorology, cosmology
botany and mineralogy, and then you see
physical astronomy and there
you also have astrology.
Here you have judicial astrology and
natural astrology or physical astrology, two
different branches and I have to explain
this. Astrology here, the science
concerned with influences of the stars
and planets upon crystal affairs.
Natural astrology is that part of astrology
that studies celestial
influences upon natural things, and
judicial astrology was the branch of
astrology the concerns with celestial
influences upon human affairs,
everything that involves human mind so
here in this branch you would have
things like measurement of time, weather
forecast, prediction of tides and eclipses,
medical prognostication, everything that
has to do with material stuff, anything
that doesn't involve human mind. And here
you have predictions on the individual's
life and character, nativities,
individual horoscope, OK? This is a good
week for you, this is a bad week for you.
So those things would be part of
judicial astrology: social, economic,
political forecast ...  anything has to do
with human beings and human affairs. Even
in material science only natural
astrology was accepted as part of
science. Judicial astrology was not part
of it. It was considered heresy because the
moment you accept that human beings are
free to act the way they want, then any
sort of prediction on human affairs
will be in opposition to Christian faith.
You understand the consequences here, OK?
Now what happened to astrology in Newtonian
science? Judicial astrology: Yes, it
remained rejected and the time it
became subjected to ridicule, but this one
here
it remained in the mosaic but
something interesting happened.
The name of astrology was removed, it became part
of physical science so towards the end
of the 18th century, you no longer see
the name astrology. In the French
encyclopedia it still exists but then
towards the end of the century it was gone.
Encyclopedia Britannica that was
published about sixteen years later,
you have 1755 that's your French
encyclopedia and then you have 1771
that's your first edition of
Encyclopedia Britannica.
In Encyclopedia Britannica the article on astrology is
only five lines long and it says well
it has been long rejected and subject of
ridicule, essentially they are referring
to judicial astrology, but all this
things remain part of science,
just they were absorbed by physical
science. You see what happened? So we can't
really say that astrology was
rejected; many of the problems that
astrology started remained part of science
although the name of astrology was gone
towards the end of the century, You no
longer have astrology. So can we say that
this is not good? All in favor? 
And what about the rest?
Newtonian science united terrestrial and
celestial physics - this is one of the
first things you learn when you study
popular history of science.
Before Newton there were two physics,
one for the terrestrial region and another one
for the movement of the celestial
bodies so you had two different sets of
laws, one for the terrestrial events and another
one for the movement of stars and then
Newton came and he united the two and
he gave us one physics that was good
enough for both the terrestrial region and
and the celestial region. Let's see if this makes
any sense. We have to start from our
Greek friend Aristotle and his universe.
In his universe you see the
sublunar region here, things are made
of the four terrestrial elements which
either tend towards the center of the
universe or towards the periphery of the
terrestrial region and you have a certain
set of laws. We've covered this law.
On the other hand the celestial
region is made of element ether which tends
to move as you can see in circles around
the center of the universe so the two
regions obey  completely different sets
of laws. The laws that work here are not
applicable to the phenomena up there.
There is no violent motion up there,
there is no tendency to descend anywhere,
there is no tendency to ascend anywhere,
the only tendency that there is up there
is to revolve in circles around the
center of the universe. This is the idea
of heterogeneity, the idea that
different regions of the universe obey
different law. Now what about the idea of
opening up the universe. It is true the
Aristotelian universe was a closed
universe.
Here, universe is finite -  you see this is the
actual physical boundary of the universe.
And this is the conception of finite
universe, the universe has physical
boundaries. It is finite in space. If you ask
Newton, he would say space exists
independently from material processes,
you see, it's something in which objects
exist; it's a stage on which you have
your material world  with all the material objects
in it and this is the conception of
absolute space: the space is independent
of material objects, that it is an empty
receptacle in which physical processes
take place. It is not material. It is something
independent of matters, just this
emptiness in which matter exists. If you
accept this as your physical conception
of space - space is independent void -  since
it is essentially void then you can't
possibly think of boundaries in space. Since
space is void, the universe must have no
physical boundaries. It is infinite in
space, like that: you see this is our
solar system and other systems, right?
What about the homogeneity or
heterogeneity?
For this we have to refer to Newton's
laws and here are the laws: the First Law,
the Second Law, the Third Law, the Law of
Gravity. Don't worry. I'm not going to read
them. Let's start with the Second Law. This
is what he says:
The acceleration of a body is directly
proportional to the net force acting on
the body and is inversely proportional
to the mass of the body. So you have an
experimental situation:
cannon and cannon ball.  This is how this
whole situation is analyzed in Newtonian
physics. You have an object with certain
mass and then you have applied force and
this will be the acceleration in this
direction which would be proportional to
the force and inversely proportional to
the mass. This is very straightforward.
Now, what happens when there is no
applied force. For that you have the
First Law. The First Law says that if an object
experiences no net force then the
velocity of the object is constant: it is
either at rest or moves in a straight
line with constant speed so it has to
maintain its state whatever that state
is. In this particular case if there were
no other forces in play here you would
have something like this so there's no
force, therefore acceleration must also
be zero so there were no forces acting
on the cannon ball it would continue to
move along a straight line due to inertia. 
(Jokingly) It will kill Newton essentially.
But likely inertia is not the only
factor here. There are other forces in
play. What are those other forces? Gravity. Law
of Gravity: any two bodies attract each
other with a force proportional to the product of
the masses and inversely proportional to
the square of the distance between them
so here in this particular case you have
a cannon ball, a certain mass and then you
have the earth, also with a certain mass.
This here would be the distance between
their respective centers. The law says
that between any two objects, in this
case the cannon ball and the earth, there is
a force of gravity that is proportional
to the product of the two masses
and inversely proportional to the square
of the distance between them. Now
zoom out and this is what you are going to get.
In this particular situation you have
two main factors: the first one is
inertia by the first law, in this
direction and the second one is gravity,
like that. So you have two factors,
the resulting trajectory will be the
combination of these two factors.
According to Newton. Again in this situation
everything repeats. You have an inertia,
you have gravity and this would be the
combination so we'll end up here.
Again in this situation, similar ... similar. As a
result of that you see that the
trajectory of a projectile is a parabola.
Now with these laws they also applicable
to celestial affairs. Of course they
would be. The same laws that govern the
trajectory of projectile on the earth
also govern the motion of planets and
stars. Let's consider one. You have a very
simplistic system with a star and a planet, let's say
the Sun and the Earth. If there were
no force of gravity, what would happen?
Well, a planet will continue to move along
a straight line due to inertia and would
eventually disappear when there was no
gravity. Since there is gravity, you have
two factors. Again you have inertia and
then you have gravity. That's why the
resulting trajectory is the combination
of the two so it ends up here. Again the
situation repeats and you have certain
inertia and gravity and it ends up here.
Again it repeats and repeats itself ...
repeats, repeats and as a result of this
you get and ellipse, the actual
trajectory must be ellipse. So the laws
of nature are the same anywhere in the
universe and this is the conception of
homogeneous universe. Pay attention: in
literature sometimes when they talk
about homogeneity they mean that type of
stuff which universe is made and this is
not what we're talking about. We are
talking about the laws that govern
changes in different regions of the
universe, OK? You can subscribe to the
conception of homogeneous universe in
terms of the laws but still believe that
the universe is made of different things
in different regions ... different types of
particles in different regions. So it is not
the types of particles were discussing
here. We are talking about the law's.
In terms of laws, this worldview supports
the position of homogeneous universe: one
set of laws for everything in the
universe, right? Now your
Aristotelian-Medieval finite universe here,
infinite universe there; heterogeneity
here, homogeneity there ... looks very
smooth and nice and Newton and Newtonian
science was the first to open
up the universe and the first to unite
terrestrial and celestial physics.
What's wrong with this picture? You know enough
history of science to challenge this view!
What about Descartes and Cartesian worldview?
He would say that it was I opened up
the universe and it was I who made it
homogeneous long before Newton. Let's
have a look.
Infinite universe, homogeneity, and
Descartes's basic idea of the matter is
extension. Descartes says, any special boundary
assumes that there is space beyond it.
But space is the attribute of matter. It
cannot exist independently of matter.
Therefore there is always matter beyond
any boundary. If you say that this is the
boundary, immediately a question arises what's
beyond it? If it is a boundary, when you
remove it, what's beyond it?
You can't say nothing. In Descartes's case you
can't have empty space at all. It should
be filled with matter because space
cannot exist independent of matter. You
remember that? So he says well there's no
such thing as limits to space. He doesn't
use the word "infinite" but he says
space is extended indefinitely, meaning
potentially infinite and we cannot
possibly think of a physical boundary
and this is enough. This gives you the
conception of infinite universe. 
What about this one -
homogeneity? Yes, he did believe that
there were three types of corpuscles,
three types of particles and yet he believed
that all three types of particles obeyed
the same laws, the same basic laws, the
First Law, the Second Law, remember we
covered those laws last time? They all
obeyed the same set of laws according to
Descartes and this is what's important,
OK? This is what gives you a homogeneous
universe. So there you have it.
Cartesian universe, again the same diagram,
the Sun in the center of its own vortex.
You have other stars with their own
vortices with planets. The universe
is extended indefinitely and all matter
obey the same set of laws. So these two myths
are also debunked. One source of this
myth is the habitual neglect of
Cartesian science so this is your usual
picture that you get from popular
literature but in reality you have to do
this and you have to make room for
Descartes and Cartesian worldview. Once
you do that you realize that the
Cartesian worldview was the first to
open up the universe. He was the first to
unite terrestrial and celestial physics. At
this point you might be thinking "okay
what are the key characteristics of the
Newtonian worldview - so far it is very similar
to the Cartesian worldview.
So what's so different about it? One
conception both Aristotle and Descartes
shared and Newton rejected was that of
plenism, the conception that there can be no empty
space. I'm going to explain this.
Starts with Aristotle who loves violent motion.
His law says if the force is greater than the
resistance then the object will move
with a velocity proportional to the
force and inversely proportional to the
resistance. If the resistance here is
greater than the force the object won't
move. We've covered this. Now you tell me
what would happen with the velocity if
there were no resistance. What would
happen to the velocity in this universe
if the resistance were 0? You? (Student) "You 
have a division by zero so either not make
sense or your velocity will just become infinite." 
(Hakob) Infinite? Infinite velocity, that's what
would happen. Thank you very much!
When the resistance is zero it follows from this
law that the object would move with an
infinite velocity. You know what the
infinite velocity means? It essentially means
two different places at the same time - not
just two different places, as many places
as you wish at the same time.
Aristotelians understood perfectly well
that the notion of infinite velocity is
utterly absurd. There's no such thing. There
can never be such thing because you
cannot possibly conceive of a thing in
two places at the same time therefore
velocity is never infinite. It just doesn't
make any sense. You put those two
together, what is the conclusion that follows?
(Student) "There is always resistance. At least
air resistance." (Hakob) Perfect! There is always
some resistance. Resistance is never zero,
which means the medium should always be
filled with something. You can never have
absolute emptiness otherwise if you
give a little touch, a little push, it would
just disappear immediately. What the hell
is this?
It follows from this: there can be no
empty space, no space devoid of matter,
and this is the conception of plenism. Is it
clear however Aristotelians arrived at plenism?
Very good. And what about Descartes? Plenism
is was one of very few ideas that Descartes
shared with Aristotle. You remember Descartes's
deduction we covered last time?
It follows from the idea that the
principal attribute of matter is extension
and we also know that attribute of
property needs a substance. You can never
have free floating attributes. You can
never have extension without actually
something being extended. So where there
is no matter, there is no space and this
is where it becomes very interesting
because this is where Newton enters the
picture. By the time Newton sat down to
write his masterpiece and we're talking
1680's towards the end of the 17th
century there had been several
experiments allegedly proving the
existence of vacuum. Guys like Torricelli
and Pascal already seemingly proved the
existence of a vacuum and this is the famous
experiment with tube of mercury - never
repeat at home because that's very dangerous -
actually people back then didn't know it
was dangerous. So what do you do? You take
a tube, close one side, and you fill the
tube with mercury and close with your
finger - this is when it gets dangerous so don't
do that - then you turn it upside down
like that and you place it in a
reservoir with more mercury like this.
This is already upside down. What you
immediately notice is a tiny gap
emerges at the top of the column and
this gap, it was argued, is nothing but
emptiness, vacuum. It was something people
debated about and it was by no means
accepted at the time. The Aristotelian 
community of the time gave it a
very nice explanation. So the
interpretation of this as a vacuum was
by no means accepted but 
Newton thought that those guys
Torricelli and Pascal were right in
arguing that this is really a vacuum
therefore
vacuum exists then you have to have such
physics that makes it possible so for
Newton the situation was this:
experimentally it has been shown that
vacuum can exist, you can have an empty
space. What is vacuum?
It is just space devoid of matter. Therefore you
have to modify your physics such that it
allows for the existence of a vacuum. And
therefore he starts from this basic idea
that space is something independent of
matter is not an attribute so the Cartesian
definition of space's extension just
doesn't make any sense. You have to
redefine things.  He says
space is the stage for material processes.
Material objects exist in space and from
this it follows that there can be space
absolutely devoid of matter, vacuum - its
conceptualists are called vacuuists. You have 
to think of space as something that can exist
even if there is nothing material in the
universe and there is a nice thought
experiment which says that if matter disappears 
from the universe, empty stage would remain.
Descartes would say that if I am alive I'd say
you don't seem to understand because how
can an attribute exists without its
substance. What are you saying? How can you
ever conceive of the redness in a
free-floating state? How can you conceive
of extension in a free-floating state? It's not 
really possible. There can be no empty space.
In reality extension is an attribute that 
cannot exist independently so it's just a
property of material things like that. If
matter disappears according to this view,
the Cartesian view, what would happen to space? 
It would disappear, it would never have
emptiness without matter. It should be like
this, nothing remains. So this is what
you're supposed to see if Descartes were right.
Empty space is a contradiction in terms.Newton 
would say "I don't care about your definition."
Maybe the problem is your definition. What I know 
is that the existence of a vacuum is an experimental
fact. It has been established. So you have
to change your definitions. You have to
start with this one:
space is independent of material objects.
Is this clear? Here they stand, the
different parties? OK, let's sum 
it up now. It's plenism here
and plenism there and vacuism here.
What are the other differences between the two?
Descartes again: action by contact -
changes in material objects can result
only from actual contact, material
particles can only interact by colliding
with each other, just like in this case a
material object changes in state only
when it is in contact with other objects -
this is a genuine drawing from Descartes'
book. This is another one: the moon is
carrying around the Earth by the particles
of the Earth, vortex and reflexes and
everything. Everything is action by
contact. Among other things,
Descartes' First Law follows from that. 
Every part of matter maintains its state
unless a collision with another part
changes that state. You would say well
this is very similar to Newton's First
Law, isn't it? Very very similar to the
Law of Inertia: every part of matter
maintains its state unless it is compelled to
change its state by some force. Can 
you tell me what the difference is?
(Student) Descartes doesn't take 
into account gravity as a force,
and gravity is not a force that acts through 
direct contact." (Hakob) Essentially yes!
There is an important difference. In
Newton's theory, as you can see, changes
are initiated not only by collisions but
also by force. You should not necessarily
touch in order to cause something to
change in a Newtonian worldview. For Descartes,
you don't have a choice. You have to
touch. You have to push. You have to
collide. In the Newtown worldview it
can be forces. It's a world full of
forces and this is one of the reasons
why the Newtonian worldview was so difficult to digest
specifically by the Cartesians on the
continent. I'm going to explain this.
In Newton's theory, forces can in principle be applied not only through collisions but also at a distance.
So essentially this view is compatible with the idea that material objects can affect each other at a distance.
One example of a force that acts at a distance or seemingly acts at a distance is gravity.
Objects pull each other at a distance without any mediators.
There is a force of attraction between any two objects in the universe.
Here, the apple and the Earth, according to the Newtonian theory there is no contact,
just the force of gravity acting between the two.
The earth and the moon attract each
other without any mediating agents.
It's not your Cartesian vortex gravity, alright? This is a completely different story.
If you asked Cartesians, they would say that the idea of action at a distance is occult.
It is occult because you can't make any sense of it.
It doesn't make any sense whatsoever and it is similar to the Aristotelian idea
of forms.
If you define matter as extension, i.e. the primary attribute of matter is extension,
then you cannot have action at a distance.
Imagine yourself being a Cartesian around the early 1700's.
You are a true well-educated Cartesian and then you have this Newtonian theory
and people are trying to convince you that two bits of matter can actually interact at a distance,
at least that's what the theory tells you.
How would you react? You'd say "it doesn't make any sense!"
We have established that the only quality that matter has
is the capacity of occupying space and this type of matter can never
interact with another bit of
matter at a distance.
There must be collisions, so this idea of action at a distance doesn't make any sense.
When Newton published his book, this was one of the major criticisms.
They said "we like your mathematics, we like your calculations, and everything seems nice,
but what about this weird notion of
gravity as a force acting at a distance?"
What's the mechanical explanation of that?
Essentially for Cartesians their notion of matter was the idea of mechanical
matter,
that matter is an extended substance interacting through collisions.
And that's why their idea was action by contact.
So to say that material objects can influence each other at a distance
would be contradictory because it would be against their definition.
For Cartesians, every material object is just an arrangement of material particles.
There could be three different types of particles but essentially there are all particles.
The moon, the Earth, the terrestrial 
vortex, the solar vortex, the Sun -
everything is just colliding and combining particles.
The Moon revolves around the Earth being pushed by the particles of Earth vortex.
The earth along with its vortex revolves around the Sun being pushed by the solar vortex.
So matter is inert.
It does not have any inner forces.
It doesn't have any capacities to affect some other bits of matter out there
without actually touching. So it's in inert.
This is the notion of mechanical matter or inert matter.
When we say mechanical matter or inert matter, this is what we mean - the Cartesian idea.
So what would you do if you were a Newtonian in the situation? What would you do as a Newtonian?
(Student) "Maybe I would change my definitions."
(Hakob) How would you change them?
(Student) "Matter wouldn't be just the thing that is extended;
there are other properties and one of them  would be the property of having gravitational attraction."
(Hakob) That's exactly what they did. It was a natural step to take:
change your definition of matter. If that's your major obstacle, then just remove it and
this is what they did. The notion of
matter must be modified and they came up
with the idea of dynamical matter, which
is the idea that matter is an extended
substance interacting through forces. It
is extension plus activity. It has an active
beginning in itself. It can act on other
bits of matter through forces. This is no
longer your inert matter lazy boy chair.
This is a lazy boy chair with a remote
control.
Every material object is composed of extended particles, 
right? it could be the Earth, the moon, the extension.
It is not the only attribute of matter - have
a look at here - the bits of matter - have a
capacity of affecting each other through forces,
This is your Newtonian conception of
matter: extension plus activity plus forces.
You see the difference here? One thing
should be clarified and that this is very
important when you study the history of
science: to distinguish, to separate Newton's
position from the position of the
community,
This can be generalized when 
you study the history
of science. Very often you focus on the
individual level, the level of individual
scientists and their belief systems. This
is very interesting if you are trying to
write the intellectual biography of that
particular scientist but you have to
separate, distinguish this from 
the opinion of the community.
Individual great scientists are one thing.
The community is quite often do
different things. Sometimes the views
coincide but very often and we know
this from the history of science
quite often their positions diverge
considerably. This is one of those
situations. Now for Newton himself the idea
of gravity, acting at a distance, was
revolting. And he says this 1693 in a
letter to one of his friends
that the idea of two bits of matter affecting
each other at a distance is so foreign to
me and indeed he tried to find a
mechanical explanation for gravity. None
of them worked. He wasn't happy with any of
those. But essentially he was trying to
find a mechanical explanation of gravity
so this whole thing is just an invention
of the so-called the Newtonians. Karl Marx
once said if they are Marxists then I am
certainly not a Marxist.
And we have to separate: when we say
Newtonian we mean the worldview accepted by
the scientific community, not necessarily
Newton's own. This is what became accepted
not only accepted on paper, you wouldn't
normally come across encyclopedia
articles that would say well we accept
dynamical conception of matter. No, this
conception was actually implicit in many
of the theories accepted at the time.
We see that this is implicit in the theory
of gravity but it was also implicit
in the whole bunch of different theories
from different fields of science. Let's
have a look.
Chemical force. This was the accepted
chemical theory of the time: the idea
that substances combine due to inherent
chemical affinities, the idea of a
chemical force or another name for this
is chemical affinity. So a combination of
two substances is possible due to the
presence of a chemical force. So this is
a new forces. This is no gravity. This is an
additional force they tried to impose upon
matter. Here we have a table of affinities.
There's another table of affinity. Here is
on top row you have all different
chemical elements and in here
vertically you would have respective
affinities. I'm going to explain.
This one is silver, for instance.
Silver is frequently alloyed with lead
because of the respective affinity. They are
very close to each other. Now let's take
this one here, sulfur which combines
with iron better than it combines with
gold because respective affinities have
different degrees so the chemical forces
are different. You see what 
they're trying to do?
Thee were trying to imitate physics. They were trying to
explain chemical phenomena this time by
applying the same template. You have
different bits of matter and forces
connecting them and in this case the
forces of gravity is a chemical affinity.
Will you see the same idea? The dynamic
conception of matter, matter interacting
through forces. Take another one.
Magnetic force, magnetic phenomena due to
an inherent magnetic force. Magnets
attract and repel due to the
magnetic force like gravity, magnetic
forces act at a distance. Here you see
attraction of magnet due to the magnetic
force and here you see repulsion of
magnets due to the magnetic force. The
same idea. Two bits of matter, forces
connecting them. This time you have another force, 
magnetic force. (Student) "What did Newtonians
find wrong with the Cartesian
explanations for magnetism and gravity?
that they decided ... that Newton decided to
come up with another theory?
(Hakob) A good question. The basic answer, the
short answer: they didn't work mathematically.
It was a nice model in general but
Newton knew from the very beginning that
the idea of vortex cannot produce
ellipses. It can give you only circles.
For planets you have ellipses, right? You don't
need circles. Vortex will give your
circles. In his masterpiece, his 
major work Principia Mathematica,
of 1687 Newton devotes a big chunk
of space refuting the theory of vortex,
saying, well it just doesn't make any sense,
empirically doesn't make any sense. So
empirical considerations that's the
short answer. You see how this is the
same idea of dynamical matter?
I'm going to give you one more example. This time 
is the vital force, living matter is organized by
an inherent vital force. Organic matter
is endowed with and organized by a vital
force. Here, we are materials substances.
There is nothing more to that except for
the soul - we are going to cover that - but as
physical bodies we are purely material.
But this is not your mechanical
Cartesian matter. This time this is the
dynamic matter that is endowed with
forces. This time these are not magnetic forces,
in North gravitational forces these are
living forces you see the same idea
penetrated into biology.
There you have it, the conception of dynamical 
matter! It has to be said that there was
very little agreement when it came to
the actual list of forces that were
supposed to be fundamental. The
argument was so how many forces are
there? How many substantial forces are
that? Can you actually reduce, let's say,
vital force to magnetism or to gravity?
What is the list of forces? Safe to say
that there was no agreement on the
subject but what they all accepted is
that matter is capable of acting through
forces, whatever those forces might be.
Now what about dualism? This is one of
those rare occasions when they agreed
with Cartesians? They actually share the
same idea, the same idea of dualism.
Dualism is the idea that there are two
substances, matter and mind.
For Descartes, there are purely 
material entities in organisms
and there are purely spiritual
entities, angels and their creator.
And there are citizens of two worlds: human 
beings. Newtonian dualism shares the same
basic idea: matter and mind. They can exist as
separate substances. Now pay attention
that we now deal with a different
definition of matter. This time is not
just purely mechanical matters. This is
the dynamic matter. But as far as the
conception of dualism concerns, 
this is the same thing,
OK? At the time, there is a huge debate as to
where you should draw the line separating
material from spiritual.
Some would insist that all living things, 
organisms have inherent organizing principles
which are essentially non-material, 
which are spiritual.
Not only human beings have minds, 
souls, spirit but also everything living
would have a spirit. So this was
one of the conceptions available on the
market. It wasn't accepted but it was available as
there was a debate on that. Others would
be properly speaking along the lines of
Descartes, the initial suggestion that
only human beings are citizens of two worlds.
Yet others liked La Mettrie for instance,
they believe in something like this:
even human beings are purely material.
They never deny the existence of God and
angels. Laplace was one exception but in
general it wasn't common to deny the
existence of God, but there was a
tradition to portray human beings as
complete machine, even the human
mind results from a combination
and collision of particle, so human beings
will become machines but what's
important here is that it would still be 
dualist because you would still have two
substances. You would have mind, not
necessarily the human mind in this case,
there will be angelic and divine, and then
you could have your material substance.
In any case the accepted view was that
there are two different substances,
matter and mind. Very good! We know that
hypothetico-deductive method was also
part of the Newtonian mosaic. We know
by the Third Law of Scientific Change
it must be a deductive consequence of
Newtonian theory. How was it a
deductive consequence? This is your
hypothetico-deductive method. In order to
understand how it followed from
Newtonian theories we have to go back to
the dynamical conception of matter.
Think of this. If matter is an extended
substance interacting from forces,
doesn't it really follow that such
qualities as colour, taste, smell, and other
qualities have to result from a
combination and interactions of matter
and forces? You see this is different
from what Descartes had in mind but the
conclusion is very similar to the
conclusion that Descartes arrived it,
and it is similar because in both cases
fundamental qualities of matter do not
include colour, taste, or smell. They do not
include any of the sensible qualities.
For both Descartes and Newton colour,
taste, and smell will be just byproduct of
something material affecting our 
senses. Byproducts! They are not
inherent in matter itself. Can we all 
appreciate this? The same applies to the idea
that any phenomenon can be produced
by an infinite number of different
combinations of interacting particles.
Again,
particles can interact collisions or
through forces in this particular case
but it doesn't change the major idea
that they have to interact somehow and
any phenomenon is a result of this
interaction. And this brings us to
two basic principles: the idea of
complexity and the idea of post hoc
explanation. Once you arrive at this, you
arrived at the principle of complexity:
the world as it appears in observation
is a product of some more fundamental
inner mechanism. And similarly here the moment
you appreciate this your arrived at the
idea that any phenomenon can be given
many different Post hoc explanations
which are equally precise. The moment you
appreciate that, you have to do something
with your method. So what do you do with
your method? There is a natural solution to
this. These two would be theoretical
assumptions and your method by the Third
Law would be hypothetico-deductive
which is its OK to try to guess the
internal structure of things despite the
fact that Newton hated hypothesis. You see this is
very ironic. Newtonian science is all
hypothetically deducted if you look at the
theories accepted at the time: 
chemical forces, vital forces, magnetic
forces. What are those forces? They are
hypotheses. They never observed those forces.
The force of gravity itself is hypothesis. You
don't observe it! What you observed is
change in position.
The force of gravity is a hypothesis so it's not
really surprising the Newtonian science was
hypothetico-deductive despite the fact
that Newton himself didn't really like it.
(Student) "Why we have to justify why the
Newtonian world you deduce the H-D
method because wasn't the Newtonian theory of
gravity accepted because it was more
accurate? So it wasn't necessarily just because 
it was accepted through the H-D method?"
(Hakob) The deduction is only important for those
communities who transitioned from the
Aristotelian to Newtonian immediately.
So in France the first forty years of
the 18th century from 1700 all the way
to the 1740, they were Cartesian,
we know this! And in that community,
hypothetico-deductive method had been
employed before the acceptance of Newtonian
worldview here so there was no transition in
method there. It was the same method
Newtonian theory was accepted because
it satisfied the requirements of the
hypothetico-deductive method.
You remember those two expeditions?
Lapland and Ecuador Peru? But
communities that transitioned immediately
from Aristotelian to Newtonian
would be mostly in England, 
Oxford and places. They didn't have a
Cartesian stage in between. Cambridge
had but most of England didn't
have a Cartesian stage in between. For those,
this is how they arrived at H-D method.
This makes sense? That's very good. 
Let's sum it up. Now you
tell me here: we have pluralism here and
here we have dualism and here we
have teleology and here we have
action by contact and action at a distance.
Here you have have hylomorphism 
and here you have mechanicism.
And here you have a dynamism, conception of matter.
Finally you have Aristotelian method and
here you have H-D and H-D. If you pay
attention,
the transition from Aristotle to Descartes 
was more drastic than that from Descartes
to Newton. Almost everything was different.
This gives you a sense of the scope of
the transition. That is one of the
reasons why when we say The Scientific
Revolution. Most of the time we refer to
this transition towards the end of the
17th century. There is a reason why we
say The Scientific Revolution and the
major reason being the difference in
methods: the transition from the
Aristotelian medieval to HD. As we're
going to see next week, we still employ
hypothetico-deductive method. So as far as 
method is concerned, on the fundamental level,
we share that method when Newtonians and Cartesians.
This was probably the most drastic 
change in the history of science.
Make sense?  Very good then.  Next time 
is the contemporary worldview and now
thank you very much!
