Newton’s Metaphysics of Space as God’s Emanative Effect

Abstract

In several of his writings, Isaac Newton proposed that physical space is God's ''emanative effect'' or ''sensorium,'' revealing something interesting about the metaphysics underlying his mathematical physics. Newton's conjectures depart from Plato and Aristotle's metaphysics of space and from classical and Cambridge Neoplatonism. Present-day philosophical concepts of supervenience clarify Newton's ideas about space and offer a portrait of Newton not only as a mathematical physicist but an independent-minded rationalist philosopher.