February 26th, 5.00-6.30 pm CET (Zoom) 

Abstract:

This paper explores the influence of Du Châtelet’s Institutions physiques (1740–42) on Kant’s early natural philosophy. While recent scholarship has shown that both authors adopted a critical stance toward Newton’s ideas, little research has been devoted to comparing their responses to the Newtonian paradigm. Yet, as early as 1749, Kant expressed sincere appreciation for Du Châtelet’s work in his treatise on living forces. In this paper, I examine Du Châtelet’s and Kant’s critiques of the speculative strand of Newtonianism that goes back to the Opticks and was further developed by Newton’s followers. More specifically, I compare their objections to John Keill’s highly influential account of matter and attraction, which played an important role in shaping eighteenth-century speculative Newtonianism. On the basis of the similarities in their arguments, I contend that Du Châtelet’s critical engagement with Keill’s work informed Kant’s early dynamical theory of matter. This paper thus highlights the often-overlooked yet crucial role of Du Châtelet in the German reception of Newtonian ideas.

About the Speaker:

Pierpaolo Betti is a post-doctoral research fellow at the Center for the History of Women Philosophers and Scientists at Paderborn University. He is currently responsible for the commentary on the historical-critical edition of Émilie Du Châtelet’s Institutions de Physique.

His primary research interests lie in modern philosophy, with a particular focus on the interrelation between the history of metaphysics and the history of science. He obtained his doctoral degree from KU Leuven in 2025. His doctoral research examined the evolution of the concept of the monad in Kant’s philosophy in light of the early reception of Leibniz’s monadology.

Respondent: Aaron Wells (Metropolitan State University of Denver)

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