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Dualism or Monism of Forces in Nature? Bošković’s Law of Attractive-repulsive Forces
Stipe KUTLEŠA
; Institut za filozofiju, Zagreb
Sažetak
An explanation of natural phenomena means knowing their causes. Since
antiquity there have been philosophical debates about causes, the most
famous of which is Aristotle’s theory of four causes. In modern science one
of Aristotle’s causes — the active cause (causa efficiens) has been placed in
the forefront, which has prevailed and modified the concept of force in
modern philosophy of nature and science and has become one of the most
important concepts of natural science. This concept remained unclear for a
long time and was somewhat anthropomorphic and difficult to eliminate
from science. Its formalisation and mathematical expression by I. Newton
began a new scientific paradigm — the so-called classical mechanics that
dominated science until the late 19th century. Newton «axiomatised« classical
mechanics by setting laws of forces acting in nature. His law of gravity
became a universal law that applies to both celestial and terrestrial phenomena.
Although Newton mentioned repulsive force, he said little about
it. Only his followers asked about the theory of repulsive force, but all
these discussions were secondary to the law of gravity. Ruđer Bošković,
although a Newton follower, was the first to radically supplement Newton’s
law of gravity by adding that there is a repulsive force between particles of
matter at small distances. In this way, he created his concept of attractive-
-repulsive forces that does not represent two forces (as in the previous tradition)
but rather is a single attractive-repulsive force which Bošković used
to explain all phenomena in nature. This is the first case in science that all
phenomena are explained by a single law. The paper discusses how
Bošković overcame the dualism of force that was important for the establishment
of some new concepts in modern science, which directly draw
their roots from the Bošković’s theory of natural philosophy that was not
any empirical theory but rather metaphysical one.
Ključne riječi
Hrčak ID:
86334
URI
Datum izdavanja:
1.9.2012.
Posjeta: 1.975 *