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Andrew Janiak

Professor of Philosophy
Philosophy
Duke Box 90743, Durham, NC 27708-0743
201 West Duke Bldg, Durham, NC

Selected Publications


THE ENLIGHTENMENT’S MOST DANGEROUS WOMAN: Émilie Du Châtelet and the Making of Modern Philosophy

Book · January 1, 2024 The Enlightenment’s Most Dangerous Woman: Émilie Du Châtelet and the Making of Modern Philosophy introduces the work and legacy of philosopher Émilie Du Châtelet. As the Enlightenment gained momentum throughout Europe, Châtelet broke through the many barri ... Full text Cite

A Tale of Two Forces: Metaphysics and its Avoidance in Newton’s Principia

Chapter · January 1, 2023 Isaac Newton did more than any other early modern figure to revolutionize natural philosophy, but he was often wary of other aspects of philosophy. He had an especially vexed relationship with metaphysics. As recent scholarship has highlighted, he often de ... Full text Cite

Émilie Du Châtelet’s Break from the French Newtonians

Journal Article Revue d'Histoire des Sciences · July 1, 2021 In Madame Du Châtelet's milieu, many philosophers argued that Newton's physics allowed one to ignore metaphysics, or perhaps required a modest supplement from elements of Locke's metaphysics. In her Institutions physiques, Du Châtelet takes a radically dif ... Full text Cite

Émilie Du Châtelet: Physics, Metaphysics and the Case of Gravity

Chapter · January 1, 2018 When Émilie Du Châtelet published her magnum opus, Institutions de physique, in 1740, it was quickly met with excited reactions from mathematicians and philosophers throughout the Continent.1 Within a few short years, it was read and discussed by philosoph ... Full text Cite

NATURAL PHILOSOPHY

Chapter · January 1, 2017 During the seventeenth century, there was something approaching consensus about the methodological parameters of natural philosophy. Throughout the century, a debate raged about whether the natural philosopher could legitimately employ geometric and arithm ... Full text Cite

Space and motion in nature and Scripture: Galileo, Descartes, Newton.

Journal Article Studies in history and philosophy of science · June 2015 Featured Publication In the Scholium to the Definitions in Principia mathematica, Newton departs from his main task of discussing space, time and motion by suddenly mentioning the proper method for interpreting Scripture. This is surprising, and it has long been ignored by sch ... Full text Cite

Newton’s Philosophy

Chapter · May 2014 Cite

Three concepts of causation in Newton

Journal Article Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A · September 1, 2013 Featured Publication In this paper, I argue that recent debates about Newton's attitude toward action at a distance have been hampered by a lack of conceptual clarity. To clarify the metaphysical background of the debates, I distinguish three kinds of causes within Newton's wo ... Full text Cite

Metaphysics and Natural Philosophy in Descartes and Newton

Journal Article Foundations of Science · August 2013 Full text Cite

Isaac Newton

Chapter · 2013 Cite

Newton and descartes: Theology and natural philosophy

Journal Article Southern Journal of Philosophy · September 1, 2012 Scholars have long recognized that Newton regarded Descartes as his principal philosophical interlocutor when composing the first edition of Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica in 1687. The arguments in the Scholium on space and time, for instance ... Full text Cite

Interpreting Newton: Critical essays

Book · January 1, 2012 This collection of specially-commissioned essays by leading scholars presents new research on Isaac Newton and his main philosophical interlocutors and critics. The essays analyze Newton's relation to his contemporaries, especially Barrow, Descartes, Leibn ... Full text Cite

Interpreting Newton: Critical essays

Book · January 1, 2012 This collection of specially-commissioned essays by leading scholars presents new research on Isaac Newton and his main philosophical interlocutors and critics. The essays analyze Newton's relation to his contemporaries, especially Barrow, Descartes, Leibn ... Full text Cite

Introduction

Book · January 1, 2012 It may be anachronistic to say that Isaac Newton and his Principia decisively changed physics and philosophy, because separate fields of physics and philosophy did not yet exist. But the notion of decisive change captures something significant about the co ... Full text Cite

God and natural philosophy

Chapter · July 10, 2008 Full text Cite

Preface

Chapter · July 10, 2008 Full text Cite

Newton as philosopher

Book · January 1, 2008 Newton's philosophical views are unique and uniquely difficult to categorise. in the course of a long career from the early 1670s until his death in 1727, he articulated profound responses to Cartesian natural philosophy and to the prevailing mechanical ph ... Full text Cite

Newton and the reality of force

Journal Article JOURNAL OF THE HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY · 2007 Full text Cite

Review: The Architecture of Matter

Journal Article Mind · October 1, 2006 Full text Cite

Kant as philosopher of science

Journal Article Perspectives on Science · September 1, 2004 Michael Friedman's Kant and the Exact Sciences (1992) refocused scholarly attention on Kant's status as a philosopher of the sciences, especially (but not exclusively) of the broadly Newtonian science of the eighteenth century. The last few years have seen ... Full text Cite

Kant as Philosopher of Science

Journal Article Perspectives on Science · June 2004 Cite

Kant, Herder and the birth of anthropology

Journal Article HISTORY OF POLITICAL THOUGHT · 2004 Cite

Kant, Herder and the Birth of Anthropology (U Chicago Press)

Other History of Political Thought · 2003 Cite

Space, atoms and mathematical divisibility in Newton

Journal Article Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A · January 1, 2000 Full text Cite