Original scientific paper

The Natural-philosophical Views of Kazimir Bedeković

Žarko Dadić ; HAZU, Zagreb, Hrvatska

Abstract

The article is an analysis of Bedeković’s Exercitatio philosophica in primam Newtoni regulam (Zagreb, 1758), the treatise being bound in the same volume as the theses Bedeković gave to his student Adam Mikulić to defend. The treatise is about Newton’s rule on hypotheses and causes in physics. The debater supporting the rule argues against hypotheses and causes as useless in physics, maintaining that attention should be focused only on natural phenomena, while his opponent argues in favour of hypotheses and causes as useful in physical speculation. Following the arguments of the English scientist Benjamin Martin, Bedeković was of the opinion that hypotheses could be cautiously and conditionally introduced in physics, though not in the manner that causes had been introduced in some natural-philosophical systems. Bedeković’s intention in this treatise was, therefore, to present the arguments for and against hypotheses and causes, and not to contrast Newton’s natural philosophy with another philosophy, and definitely not with Aristotelianism. The prolegomena to the physics manual (Trnava, 1756), in which its author Andrej Jaslinský included an argument between the supporters and opponents of hypotheses in physical considerations, must have prompted Bedeković to write this treatise. The theses he composed for the students to defend at the Jesuit Academy in Zagreb in 1758 were also based on Jaslinský’s manual. Bedeković translated Baker’s book on the uncertainty of knowledge into Latin and made use of the argument for the uncertainty of knowledge in his treatise on Newton’s first rule. Bedeković’s natural-philosophical views were for the most part in accordance with the natural philosophy of Descartes and atomism, and contained no trace of Aristotelianism. His original treatise on Newton’s first rule and his translation of Baker’s book on the uncertainty of knowledge were probably the groundwork for the theses defended by the students at the Jesuit Academy in Zagreb in 1758 and 1759. These debates, in their turn, showed the influence of some very important naturalphilosophical and scientific questions discussed at the time in Europe’s scientific and educational centres.

Keywords

Hrčak ID:

72237

URI

https://hrcak.srce.hr/72237

Publication date:

3.12.2001.

Article data in other languages: croatian

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