In my PhD project, titled Émilie Du Châtelet: An inquiry into continental (meta)physics in the mid-eighteenth century, I am researching Émilie Du Châtelet’s physics and metaphysics. This project proclaims a combined reading of Du Châtelet’s Institutions de Physique and the Dissertation sur la nature et la propagation du feu for a more complete understanding of her attempt to reconcile (Newtonian) physics and (Leibnizian) metaphysics. Within this research, special attention goes to the relation of forces and matter, the communication of immaterial forces to physical bodies, and the role of fire in Du Châtelet’s natural philosophy.

Contact: m.j.korpershoek@rug.nl