Organized by Dr. Pedro Pricladnitzky and Dr. Stefano Veneroni

We are pleased to announce the upcoming online workshop “The Living Forces Debate across Europe (1686?–1743?)”, jointly organized by Dr. Pedro Pricladnitzky and Dr. Stefano Veneroni. The event is a collaboration between the Center for the History of Women Philosophers and Scientists (University of Paderborn) and the Istituto per la Storia del Pensiero Filosofico e Scientifico Moderno (ISPF-CNR).

Date: 5–6 June 2025
Time: 2:30 PM – 7:00 PM (CEST)
Contact: contact@historyofwomenphilosophers.org
Registration: To receive the Zoom link, please click here.

The debate on living forces was one of the most significant intellectual controversies in early modern natural philosophy. It revolved around the fundamental principles governing motion and force, particularly the question of what quantity is conserved in nature: Cartesian momentum (mass times velocity) or Leibniz’s vis viva (mass times the square of velocity).

Émilie Du Châtelet played a key role in this discourse. In her Institutions de Physique (1740), she offered a comprehensive and original defense of the vis viva principle, helping to shape the transition from metaphysical conceptions of force to a more modern understanding of kinetic energy. Her critical engagement with both Newtonian and Leibnizian frameworks, along with her emphasis on mathematical reasoning and empirical evidence, had a lasting impact on the development of classical mechanics.

The workshop will address key texts and figures of the period, including Descartes’ Principia Philosophiae (1644), Leibniz’s Brevis Demonstratio (1686) and Specimen Dynamicum (1695), Du Châtelet’s Institutions de Physique(1740/1742), and the influence of this debate on Kant’s early work Gedanken von der wahren Schätzung der lebendigen Kräfte (1746–49).

The full program of the workshop will be published soon.