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Ruggiero Boscovich’s Theory of Natural Philosophy

Part of the Science Networks. Historical Studies Book Series (volume 60)

DOI: 10.1007/978-3-030-52093-9

ISBN: 978-3-030-52092-2

Publisher: Springer International Publishing - Springer Journals

Sep 1, 2020

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Chapter 1In the Temples of Holy Mathematics

Guzzardi, Luca

Pages: 1 –41

[In the Jesuit order of knowledge, mathematics played an important but controversial role, which was partly derived from and partly in tension with the Aristotelian-Scholastic tradition. This, in turn, provided the common framework for the diverse philosophical tendencies developed within the...
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Chapter 2God’s in His Heaven—All’s Right with the World

Guzzardi, Luca

Pages: 43 –59

[In the previous chapter, we saw that Boscovich’s compatibilist attitude helped him formulate an agnostic mathematical epistemology regarding an ultimate reality as important as the true kinematic state of the earth. For him, astronomy was a seminal ground, because his physico-mathematical...
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Chapter 3The Others

Guzzardi, Luca

Pages: 61 –92

[Following the line of thought in De viribus vivis, I argued that at least one force inversion, at infinitesimal distances, must take place in Boscovich’s theory in order to save, e.g., the continuous change of velocity in processes involving the collision of bodies. However, this is only one...
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Chapter 4The Book of Genesis

Guzzardi, Luca

Pages: 93 –127

[Having explained why I do not see Boscovich’s conception as belonging to the corpuscular-dynamical theories of matter that flourished in eighteenth-century Britain, and why he can hardly be associated with “dynamicists” of various kinds, I will now proceed to explore his theory of matter as it...
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Chapter 5The Other Labyrinth

Guzzardi, Luca

Pages: 129 –144

[In the last chapter, I argued that, via transduction, Boscovich’s force curve causes matter (and, indirectly, real space) to be discontinuous. Let us assume that, as it happens with Boscovich’s curve, repulsion grows asymptotically at infinitesimal distances; then, let us imagine dividing bodies...
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Chapter 6Touching Infinity

Guzzardi, Luca

Pages: 145 –176

[It was probably the new view of continuity, together with his enhanced diagrammatic strategy, that led Boscovich to ultimately re-frame the law of forces and search for its firm mathematical basis. However, it was a process that took approximately a decade of profound exploration of a kind of...

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