Émilie Du Châtelet and the Problem of Bodies

The first edition of Du Châtelet’s Institutions de Physique (hereafter translated as Foundations of Physics) was published in 1740,1 and was written in France in the late 1730s, in the wake of Newton’s Principia, at a time when Cartesian natural philosophy remained popular in France (the first edition of Newton’s Principia was published in 1687, Descartes’ Principles of Philosophy was published in 1644, and Rohault’s textbook of 1671, with multiple editions thereafter, remained the standard Cartesian textbook).2, 3.

Duke Scholars

Author Katherine A. Brading Philosophy