Control of Absolute Motion While Balancing in 2D

Throughout his career, Immanuel Kant was engaged rather closely with Newtonian science. Although Kant adopts many Newtonian principles, most obviously the Newtonian gravitational law, he is also critical of Newton for, among other things, not having provided “metaphysical foundations” for science. Kant’s own attempt to provide such foundations leads him to have a somewhat different picture of the physical world from Newton. This article describes why Kant thought that metaphysical foundations were required and some of the ways this requirement leads Kant toward non-Newtonian views. In particular, it compares and contrasts their views on the nature of matter, force, the laws of nature, and absolute space and absolute motion.

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Newton’s Scholium on Time, Space, Place and Motion

The Oxford Handbook of Newton ◽

10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199930418.013.28 ◽

2019 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Robert Rynasiewicz

Keyword(s):

Relative Motion ◽

Absolute Space ◽

Absolute Time ◽

True Motion ◽

Absolute Motion ◽

Time Space ◽

The Absolute ◽

Absolute Quantity ◽

Rotating Bucket

In the Scholium to the Definitions at the beginning of the Principia, Newton distinguishes absolute time, space, place, and motion from their relative counterparts. He argues that they are indeed ontologically distinct, in that the absolute quantity cannot be reduced to some particular category of the relative, as Descartes had attempted by defining absolute motion to be relative motion with respect to immediately ambient bodies. Newton’s rotating bucket experiment, rather than attempting to show that absolute motion exists, is one of five arguments from the properties, causes, and effects of motion. These arguments attempt to show that no such program can succeed, and thus that true motion can be adequately analyzed only by invoking immovable places, that is, the parts of absolute space.

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