The Newton Wars and the Beginning of the French Enlightenment

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University of Chicago Press, Sep 15, 2008 - Science - 464 pages
Nothing is considered more natural than the connection between Isaac Newton’s science and the modernity that came into being during the eighteenth-century Enlightenment. Terms like “Newtonianism” are routinely taken as synonyms for “Enlightenment” and “modern” thought, yet the particular conjunction of these terms has a history full of accidents and contingencies. Modern physics, for example, was not the determined result of the rational unfolding of Newton’s scientific work in the eighteenth century, nor was the Enlightenment the natural and inevitable consequence of Newton’s eighteenth-century reception. Each of these outcomes, in fact, was a contingent event produced by the particular historical developments of the early eighteenth century.

A comprehensive study of public culture, The Newton Wars and the Beginning of the French Enlightenment digsbelow the surface of the commonplace narratives that link Newton with Enlightenment thought to examine the actual historical changes that brought them together in eighteenth-century time and space. Drawing on the full range of early modern scientific sources, from studied scientific treatises and academic papers to book reviews, commentaries, and private correspondence, J. B. Shank challenges the widely accepted claim that Isaac Newton’s solitary genius is the reason for his iconic status as the father of modern physics and the philosophemovement.
 

Contents

Provincializing Newton or Building in the Ruins of a Grand Narrative of Modernity
1
Newton and French Science before 1728
37
Part 2 The Newton Wars in France
233
Instituting the French Enlightenment Diderot and dAlemberts Encyclopédie
481
Bibliography
507
Index
549
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About the author (2008)

J. B. Shank is associate professor of history at the University of Minnesota.

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