William Whiston, Isaac Newton and the crisis of publicity

Snobelen, Stephen D.

doi:10.1016/j.shpsa.2004.06.008

Cited by 15 publications

(5 citation statements)

References 11 publications

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“…William Whiston (1667–1752) was a transitional figure in multiple ways. His putative Arian anti‐Trinitarianism cost him a prestigious endowed professorial chair at his alma mater, Cambridge (Duffy 1976; Wiles 1996, 93–110; Snobelen 2004). His move away from allegorical interpretation was foreshadowing of “modern biblical scholarship” and its near‐complete dismantling of spiritual readings of scripture.…”

Section: William Whiston: Primitive Christianity Faulty Manuscriptsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Atheism, Atoms, and the Activity of God: Science and Religion in Early Boyle Lectures, 1692–1707

Lim¹

2021

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The last‐half of seventeenth‐century England witnessed an increasing number of works published questioning the traditional notions of God's work of creation and providence. Ascribing agency to matter, motion, chance, and fortune, thinkers ranging from Hobbes, Spinoza, modern‐Epicureans, and other presented a challenge to the Anglican defenders of social and ecclesiastical order. By examining the genesis of the Boyle Lectures that began in 1692 with a bequest from Robert Boyle, we can see that while the Lecturers—three of whom will be examined in detail (Richard Bentley, John Harris, and William Whiston)—assiduously defended classical notions of the God–world relationship, they did so without a great sense of panic or pessimism. This transitional period in the mode of conflict or concord between religion and science sheds interesting lights on matters such as argument from design, biogenesis without purposive, personal agents, and scriptural exegesis and scientific inquiries.

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Section: William Whiston: Primitive Christianity Faulty Manuscriptsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Atheism, Atoms, and the Activity of God: Science and Religion in Early Boyle Lectures, 1692–1707

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2021

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“…39 In contrast to Bentley, who did not mention the laws of motion, Whiston thus explicitly inferred the passivity of matter and the requirement of a non-mechanical cause for its motion from Newton's First and Second Laws. Whiston's third to ninth lemmas 34 For biographical information, see Force (1985); Snobelen (2004). 35 Whiston (1696, title page).…”

Section: The Laws Of Motion and The Passivity Of Matter: Whiston's A ...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Readers of the first edition of Newton'sPrincipiaon the relation between gravity, matter, and divine and natural causation: British public debates, 1687–1713

Ducheyne

Besouw

2021

Centaurus

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In this article, we document how, in the public arena, British readers of the first edition of Isaac Newton's Philosophiae naturalis principia mathematica (1687) tried to make sense of the relation between gravity, matter, and divine and natural causation—an issue on which Newton had remained entirely silent in the first edition of the Principia. We show that readers attached new meanings to the Principia so that parts of it migrated to a different intellectual debate. It will be shown that one particular result Newton obtained in the Principia, namely the rejection of a vacuum in Corollary 3 to Proposition 6 in Book 3, was the most important locus in debates on the relation between gravity, matter, and causation.

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“…This present article ought to be seen as complementary with, rather than an attempt to supplant Stewart's work. 3 For some exceptions, see Wigelsworth 2003;Wigelsworth forthcoming;Bryden 1992;Bryden 1999;Costa 2002;Snobelen 2004;Bryden and Simms 1992. quality." Moreover, as Patricia Fara revealed in her study of magnetism, the examination of a single natural philosophical concept, longitude in this present example, for a defined period of time "enables grander historical themes, such as the emergence of the public sphere, the creation of a consumer society .…”

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confidence: 99%

“… 3 For some exceptions, see Wigelsworth 2003; Wigelsworth forthcoming; Bryden 1992; Bryden 1999; Costa 2002; Snobelen 2004; Bryden and Simms 1992.…”

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Navigation and Newsprint: Advertising Longitude Schemes in the Public Sphere ca. 1715

Wigelsworth

2008

Sci Context

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ArgumentThis article examines advertisements for potential solutions to the problem of longitude during the year following the announcement of the maximum £20,000 reward in the summer of 1714. While there have been many studies of the race to determine longitude, advertisements have not received close scrutiny. Little attention has been paid to the commoditization of longitude in the marketplace of public science sold within London's public sphere. Although books and lecture series dominated public science in eighteenth-century England, longitude ads are a unique example of this phenomenon. Unlike lecturers or publishers of natural philosophical tracts who sought audiences for demonstrations or readers for books which contained accounts of nature that were not open to debate, longitude seekers were doing something different. Those who attempted to solve the problem of longitude and advertised their plans to the public sought out witnesses to validate and confirm the effectiveness of their experiments or instruments. In other words, the public sphere became the crucible of judgment for schemes of longitude.

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William Whiston, Isaac Newton and the crisis of publicity

Cited by 15 publications

References 11 publications

Atheism, Atoms, and the Activity of God: Science and Religion in Early Boyle Lectures, 1692–1707

Atheism, Atoms, and the Activity of God: Science and Religion in Early Boyle Lectures, 1692–1707

Readers of the first edition of Newton'sPrincipiaon the relation between gravity, matter, and divine and natural causation: British public debates, 1687–1713

Navigation and Newsprint: Advertising Longitude Schemes in the Public Sphere ca. 1715

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