ON THE PHILOSOPHICAL
MANEUVERS IN NEWTON’S LAW
OF UNIVERSAL GRAVITATION
Vicente Raja
Universitiyof Cincinnati
Three caveats before the talk…
 I’m from Spain. Sorry for my accent!
 I’m a stutterer. Sorry for the gaps!
 I’m an outsider. Sorry for… Well, I’ll try to do my best!
Outline
Why am I interested in philosophical
maneuvers? What is embodiment?
Kepler, Descartes, and embodiment.
Newton, the Law of Universal Gravity, and
embodiment.
Gravity nowadays and other consequences.
Philosophical Maneuvers of Embodiment
Why Am I interested in
Philosophical Maneuvers?
What is Embodiment/The
Embodied Approach?
 Embodied Cognition or The Embodied
 Cognitive science is really young as a
Approach is the newest paradigm in
science—according to the myth, CS was
CS—still not dominant, though.
born during the morning of September
11th, 1956 at MIT.
 The key of Embodided Cognition is
Embodiment, which I will define as the
 Perhaps due to its youth, CS is
appeal to body-environment interactions
experimenting a continuous clash
to explain behavior.
between different paradigms in the last
 My guiding question is: Is Embodiment
decades.
specific of CS or a broad scientific
principle? I will answer that Embodiment
 Philosophical maneuvers in terms of
explanation, categorization, etc. underlie may be found in early modern science,
being Newton’s Law of Universal
these different paradigms.
Gravitation its main example.
Philosophical Maneuvers of Embodiment
In other words…
 I am interested in the philosophical maneuvers of
embodiment (i.e., the appeal to bodily interactions to
explain behaviors)—importantly, they are not specific of
cognitive science, but a general process in the
constitution (at least some) sciences.
 Embodiment, I contend, appeared for the first time in
early modern science, specifically in optics and physics.
 These philosophical maneuvers underlie the explanatory
shift that, along with novel ontological commitments,
made possible early modern science.
 Newton’s Law of Universal Gravitation was both the
culmination and the main example of such philosophical
maneuvers.
Kepler, Descartes, and Embodiment
Kepler and the Embodiment in Optics
 Kepler revolutionized the field of optics by turning it “into a mathematical-physical
study of the production of images by light.” (Gal & Chen-Morris 2013: 35)
 Disconnection between optics and vision—consequence of embodiment; vision
required “species” or “ideas” which were inner teleological properties of images.
Optic is about lights, screens, and instruments.
 Kepler, Astronomiae pars Optica (1604: 180): “How this image or picture is joined
together with the visual spirits that reside in the retina and in the nerve, and whether
it is arraigned within by the spirits into the caverns of the cerebrum to the tribunal of
the soul or of the visual faculty; whether the visual faculty, like a magistrate, given by
the soul, descending from the headquarters of the cerebrum outside to the visual
nerve itself and the retina, as to lower courts, might go forth to meet this image—
this, I say, I leave to the natural philosophers to argue about.”
Kepler, Descartes, and Embodiment
Kepler and the Embodiment in Optics
 The key idea is that by changing the subject matter of optics, Kepler is able to avoid
explanations of optical phenomena in terms of forms (“species” or “ideas”) which
travel from the object of vision to the organ of vision.
 This is the first instance of embodiment as anti-Aristotelianism. Actually,
embodiment is a form of anti-Aristotelianism.
 Descartes will generalize this strategy from optics to sciences in general.
 Just a brief note before…
 Notice the relation between embodiment and mathematization.
 The just make sense together!—more on that soon.
Kepler, Descartes, and Embodiment
Descartes, Embodiment, and Anti-Aristotelianism
 Descartes made explicit the separation of optics and the study of vision by
restricting the former to his Treatise of Light and the latter to his Treatise of Man.
 He provided metaphysical justification for the usefulness of mathematics. For him,
bodies were simply “the objects of geometry made real” (Garber 1992: 63).
 In scholastic-Aristotelianism, natural change was primarily explained by means of its
end states, what the Aristotelians called “final” or “telic” causes.
 In Aristotelian metaphysics, substantial forms constitute the “essence” of beings,
and this essence determines what any particular thing is, what it does, and what it is
for. Substantial forms thus determine telos.
Kepler, Descartes, and Embodiment
Descartes, Embodiment, and Anti-Aristotelianism
 The French philosopher was mainly concerned with these substantial forms, which
were the differential feature of bodies and the explanatory principle of their
behavior.
 He thought about substantial forms as “little minds attached to bodies, causing the
behavior characteristic of different sorts of substances” (Garber 1992: 287).
 Embodiment as anti-Aristotelianism consists in ceasing to appeal to internal
teleological states (substantial forms) as explanations.
Kepler, Descartes, and Embodiment
Embodiment as Explanatory Shift
 No more substantial forms. That is, no
inner teleological states to explain
behavior.
 Explanation appeals to rules and laws of
interaction—this is clear both in Kepler
and Descartes.
 Two notes…
 Embodiment does not have a preferred
ontology. The world as a great machine
helps, but it’s not necessary (e.g., dynamic
systems).
 The explanatory shift is culminated with
Newton’s Law of Universal Gravitation.
Newton and Embodiment
Motion and Action at a Distance
 Motion is central for Newtonian physics: directly
related with forces and main explanandum.
 For instance, according to the 2nd law a change in
motion is proportional to the motive force impressed
and that change in motion is directed along the straight
line in which this force is impressed.
 Motion was central to Descartes as well: “all variation in
matter, that is, all the diversity of its forms depends on
motion" (Principles Part II, art. 23).
 Action at a Distance: Newton came to believe in
the existence of forces that could produce
curved or orbital motion without contact—drastic
revision of of the then-current mechanical
philosophy, and a problem(?) for embodiment.
Newton and Embodiment
Law of Universal Gravitation
 This is an example of action at a distance.
 But, crucially, this is the first paradigmatic example of embodiment.
Newton and Embodiment
Wrapping up…
 Embodiment is an explanatory shift
happened in early modern science.
 Embodiment consist in the appeal
to bodies and their interactions to
explain phenomena.
 The path to embodiment may be
traced, at least, to Kepler.
 The philosophical maneuvers in embodiment, specifically anti-Aristotelianism, are
mostly developed by Descartes.
 Newton, already in the new mind-setting, received these philosophical maneuvers an
developed the his law of universal gravitation, the quintessence of embodiment.
Gravity Nowadays
… And One More Thing
 Gravity, as action at a distance, has been a subject of an on-going discussion.
 Newton’s LUG has been charged as non-explanatory (there’s no explanation without mechanism).
 There has been some proposals of mechanisms for gravity…
 … And some of them are embodied!
 For example, Verlinde’s idea of the entropic origin of gravity (2011).
 “…according to Verlinde, gravitational force is a macroscopic phenomenon between material bodies
caused by the statistical tendency of a system to increase its entropy as the relative position of
gravitating bodies changes (a change of matter distribution in the gravitating system).” (Kobakhidze
2011: 2)
 Gravity in systemic terms! This is embodiment.
THANK YOU!
VICENTE RAJA – [email protected]