The Enlightenment critique of the esprit de système and its tendency towards eclecticism have often been interpreted as symptoms of speculative shallowness. The article analyses the origins of this prejudice, with special reference to the early French Enlightenment (1700-1750). It then attempts to counter such a preconception by providing a relevant counterexample. The case study presented is that of Pierre-Louis Moreau de Maupertuis, usually considered a typical instance of the anti-systematic proto-positivist philosophe. In discussing his philosophy, (...) epistemological and cosmological issues in particular are emphasized, showing how Maupertuis’ thoroughly empiricist theory of knowledge led him to apply mathematics to all domains of human knowledge in order to reduce their uncertainty. It is concluded that Maupertuis is the author of a rich and interesting work, which brings some novelty to the philosophical scene of his own times, if not to the whole history of modern philosophy. (shrink)

Without doubt, the principle of least action is a fundamental principle in classical mechanics. Contemporary physicists, however, consider the PLA as a purely mathematical principle – even an axiom which they cannot completely justify. Such an account stands in sharp contrast with the historical meaning of the PLA. When the principle was introduced in the 1740s, by Pierre-Louis Moreau de Maupertuis, its meaning was much more versatile. For Maupertuis the principle of least action signified that (...) nature is thrifty or economical in all its actions, i.e., that nature avoids to do anything unnecessary. Maupertuis understood the principle in teleological terms and even considered the principle as an expression of God’s wisdom. It has been correctly pointed out by historians that Maupertuis in his later years moved towards a more speculative and metaphysical approach, whereas his contemporary Euler and later Lagrange, wanted to avoid such theological and metaphysical implications and frame the PLA in purely mathematical terms. Such readings, however, have had the unintended side-effect that they lose out of sight the question how the mathematical and metaphysical aspect of the principle of least action fit together within Maupertuis’ own work. Investigating if and how the mathematical and metaphysical aspects of the PLA are compatible within Maupertuis’ thought will be the main goal of this paper. (shrink)

Pierre Louis Moreau de Maupertuis’ famous and influential Discours sur les différentes figures des astres, which represented the first public defense of attractionism in the Cartesian stronghold of the Paris Academy, sometimes suggests a metaphysically agnostic defense of gravity as simply a regularity. However, Maupertuis’ considered account in the essay, I argue, is much more subtle. I analyze Maupertuis’ position, showing how it is generated by an extended consideration of the possibility of attraction as (...) an inherent property and fuelled by an understanding of Lockean skepticism about knowledge of real essences that is more nuanced perhaps even than Locke’s own. (shrink)

The perpetual secretary of the Berlin Academy Johann Heinrich Samuel Formey is best known as a populariser of Christian Wolff’s doctrines. As of Formey’s activity in the Berlin Academy, scholars have mostly emphasized his role in the controversy over monads with Leonhard Euler, while overlooking other interesting contributions Formey presented in the “speculative philosophy” class of the Academy. In this paper, I analyse two articles Formey published in 1747 on the Mémoires de l’Académie de Berlin, namely the Preuves de l’existence (...) de Dieu, ramenées aux notions communes and the Examen de la preuve qu’on tire des fins de la nature, pour établir l’existence de Dieu. In these texts, Formey presents some of Wolff’s methodological and metaphysical ideas, in an implicit dialogue with other members of the Academy – in particular, with the president Pierre-Louis Moreau de Maupertuis – who were also interested in metaphysics and the philosophical method. Formey reworks the Wolffian arguments as to make them more accessible, in order to promote an open confrontation over core philosophical questions. Far from adopting a controversial tone, Formey’s attitude is rather conciliatory: any disagreement, as he thinks, can be easily settled once the true method for philosophizing is made available to everybody. (shrink)

Towards the middle of the 18th century, Pierre-Louis Moreau de Maupertuis proposed the “principle of least action” as a fundamental law of physics and as a proof of the existence of God. Samuel König and other contemporary authors criticized Maupertuis’ work. There ensued a fierce discussion concerning this subject, in which Leonhard Euler, the king Frédéric II of Prussia and Voltaire took part. This paper discusses that debate, emphasizing its extrascientific features and analyzing the interests (...) that motivated the actions of the people involved in that episode. RESUMO: Em meados do século XVIII, Pierre-Louis Moreau de Maupertuis propôs o “princípio de ação mínima”, que seria uma lei fundamental da física, além de constituir uma prova da existência de Deus. O trabalho de Maupertuis foi criticado por Samuel König e outros autores da época. Ocorreu uma violenta discussão a respeito desse assunto, da qual participaram Leonhard Euler, o rei Frédéric II da Prússia e Voltaire. Este artigo estuda o debate ocorrido, enfatizando especialmente os aspectos extracientíficos e analisando os interesses que motivaram as ações das pessoas envolvidas nesse episódio. (shrink)

Towards the middle of the 18th century, Pierre-Louis Moreau de Maupertuis proposed the “principle of least action” as a fundamental law of physics and as a proof of the existence of God. Samuel König and other contemporary authors criticized Maupertuis’ work. There ensued a fierce discussion concerning this subject, in which Leonhard Euler, the king Frédéric II of Prussia and Voltaire took part. This paper discusses that debate, emphasizing its extrascientific features and analyzing the interests (...) that motivated the actions of the people involved in that episode. Key words: Pierre-Louis Moreau de Maupertuis, François Marie Arouet Voltaire, Johann Samuel König, Frédéric II – king of Prussia, principle of least action, history of physics, scientific controversies. (shrink)

In his Système de la nature ou Essai sur les corps organisés, Pierre-Louis Moreau de Maupertuis, President of the Berlin Academy of Sciences and a natural philosopher with a strong interest in the modes of transmission of 'genetic' information, described living minima which he termed molecules, “endowed with desire, memory and intelligence.” Now, Maupertuis was a Leibnizian of sorts; his molecules possessed higher-level, 'mental' properties, recalling La Mettrie's statement in L'Homme-Machine, that Leibnizians have “rather spiritualized (...) matter than materialized the soul.” But Maupertuis also debated this issue with Diderot, who critiqued this theory in the additions to his 1753 Pensées sur l'interprétation de la nature. Where Maupertuis attributes higher-level properties to his living minima, Diderot argues that these can only be 'organizational', i.e., properties of the whole. At issue here is the degree of commitment to a form of materialism. (shrink)

One of the greatest philosophical controversies of the eighteenth century was the competition organized in 1746 by the Berlin Academy of Sciences. Although the specific object of the competition was the theory of monads, this particular question nevertheless referred to a deeper and more radical opposition between the two contending parties, Newtonians and Wolffians. In this contribution, we will first focus on the reasons for Newtonian opposition to Wolff’s philosophy. In this context, particular attention will be paid to the positions (...) of Euler and Maupertuis. We will then proceed to a comparison between the positions of Wolff and Maupertuis on the crucial question of the relationship between mathematical and philosophical method. Our analysis will attempt to show the existence, in Maupertuis’s thought, of an effort to apply the mathematical method to disciplines other than mathematics itself, which will allow us to determine his opposition to Wolffian philosophy. Finally, we will clarify the affinities and divergences between Wolff and Maupertuis, trying to show that the real reasons for their opposition should be sought in their respective epistemologies and metaphysics. (shrink)

ResumenEl artículo presenta una sucinta exposición de las principales aportaciones sobre Filosofía Biológica realizadas por diversos autores al desarrollo del pensamiento evolucionista, durante el período histórico transcurrido entre el medievo y la articulación de la teoría darwinista. En particular, expone las contribuciones de diversa índole realizadas por Andrés Vesalio, Andrew Battell, Jacobo Bondt, Nicolás Tulp, Edward Tyson, John Ray, Benoit de Maillet, Pierre Louis Moreau de Maupertuis, Karl von Linneo, Georges Louis Leclerc, Félix de Azara (...) y Jean Baptiste Lamarck.Palabras claveHistoria de la ciencia, historia de la filosofía biológica, evolucionismo predarwinista, orígenes de la primatologíaAbstractThis paper presents a brief exposition of the main contributions about Philosophy of Biology provided by several authors for the development of evolutionist thought, during the historical period elapsed from the Middle Ages to the beginning of Darwinian theory. It particularly presents different kinds of contributions made by Andreas Vesalius, Andrew Battell, Jacob Bondt, Nicolaes Tulp, Edward Tyson, John Ray, Benoit de Maillet, Pierre Louis Moreau de Maupertuis, Karl von Linneo, Georges Louis Leclerc, Félix de Azara and Jean Baptiste Lamarck.KeywordsHistory of science, history of philosophy of biology, predarwinian evolutionary theory, origins of primatology. (shrink)

In 1751, LEONHARD EULER established “harmony” between two principles that had been stated by PIERRE-LOUIS-MOREAU DE MAUPERTUIS a few years earlier. These principles are intended to be the foundations of Mechanics; they are the principle of rest and the principle of least action.My claim is that the way in which “harmony” is achieved sets the foundations of so called Analytical Mechanics: it discloses the physical bases of the general ideas, concepts, and motivations of the formalism. My (...) paper intends to show what those physical bases are, and how a picture of the formalism issues from them. This picture is shown to be recast in JOSEPH-LOUIS LAGRANGES justification of the formalism, which strengthens my claim. (shrink)

The present paper aims to examine the biological works of Pierre-Louis Moreau de Maupertuis (1698–1759), a prominent French scientist and philosopher, on the problems of animal reproduction and heredity. His scientific career exemplifies how, in mid-eighteenth-century Europe, various scientific disciplines were intertwined with literature, art, and philosophy. In one of his major publications dealing with these issues, “Venus physique” (1745), from one role to another time and again, combining theory, observation, everyday experience, and literary narrative. His (...) objections to preformationism unfold in a stylized literary context that itself references the more personal context of salon conversation and flirtation. Maupertuis’s epigenetic conception of reproduction (with its origins in Antiquity) drew on a wide range of arguments from a variety of sources: anatomy and monster studies, observations of racial differences and family resemblance, analysis of the breeding experience of animal breeders, microscopic observations, and chemical insights. The French scientist presented the dynamics of processes in living nature in terms of naturalized desire and aversion, which function as guiding inclinations inherent in the smallest units of organic matter. In “Venus physique”, Maupertuis, in presenting his biological views, played on the appeal in certain Parisian circles of socially acceptable epathetics associated with philosophical texts, eroticism, unorthodox religious beliefs, and illicit sexual liaisons. (shrink)

This work contrasts the formalist approach to defining explanation in science, exemplified in the Deductive-Nomenological Model of Carl G. Hempel, with the contextualist approach of Thomas Kuhn. It is argued that both of these attempts to define the explanatory processes of science are inadequate. A connection is made between the view of rationality upon which each view is based and the way that it defines explanation. It is argued that a process of thought, which scientific explanation represents, is considered rational (...) by these thinkers only if it meets the criteria of constraint under a rule, distance from subjective considerations and instrumental connection of method and goal. Given this strong definition of rationality, explanation is defined by both Kuhn and Hempel as thought within the constraint of a theory or a theoretical paradigm. Under this construal, explanation is separated as a process from theory invention which both thinkers hold to involve primarily non-cognitive criteria of choice. It is argued in this work that such a view contradicts the actual practice of science where theory invention seems to be primarily a process of rational explaining. ;A detailed historical case of an attempt to explain organic morphogenesis is given. It centers on the theory of generation of Pierre Louis Moreau de Maupertuis, an 18th Century scientific thinker. This case is meant to illustrate the kinds of cognitive interest and strategies of invention that go into dealing with an explanatory problem in science. ;Finally some general programmatic conclusions are made relating the foregoing arguments and the case, to the need to explore the nature of scientific explanation in the domain of theory invention where the reasoning processes seem to involve analogical reasoning and critical metaphysical thought. (shrink)

Le constat que fait Spinoza dans le Traité de la réforme de l ’ entendement selon lequel on ne connaît ses parents que par ouï-dire fournit l’occasion de développer, à partir de l’exemple de la famille, la conception originale qu’offre le point de vue spinoziste sur les institutions. En reprenant une distinction que fait Julie Henry, on peut dire que la famille n’existe pas par nature, mais qu’elle est un effet naturel. L’univocité de la causalité et la diversité des causes (...) qui président à sa constitution permettent d’échapper à l’opposition nature – culture comme à toute tentative de réduire les phénomènes sociaux à des principes biologiques ou environnementaux. (shrink)

The essays gathered in this issue of the journal Noctua focus on the various relationships that were established between philosophy and mathematics from Galileo and Descartes to Kant, passing by Newton.

Il s'agit, dans ce second volume, intitulé Terrains et idéologies.Théorie et pratique, de montrer par des recensions d'ouvrages sur des objets de recherche divers qu'une théorisation élaborée en sciences sociales à partir de théorisations déjà faites, exige un retour au terrain pour être validée. Une nouvelle théorisation invalidera ou confirmera les premières théorisations. Des approches comportementalistes de la pénibilité du travail, un chercheur montre l'insuffisance par une analyse approfondie qui tient compte de la subjectivité.De la pratique à la théorie, de (...) la théorie à la pratique, les sciences sociales suivent un chemin qui s'interrompt, se reprend sans cesse et qui ne s'achève jamais -- Editor. (shrink)

Le statut des savoirs et des connaissances en sciences humaines et sociales, tel qu'il commençait à être élaboré par les précurseurs et les fondateurs de ce qu'il était convenu d'appeler la sociologie, à laquelle vint s'ajouter l'anthropologie, pose aujourd'hui problème tant au niveau des sacralisations maintenues qu'à celui des modernisations s'accomplissant et accomplies. À partir d'ouvrages inventoriés sur une longue période, principalement les trente dernières années, l'épistémologie des sciences sociales s'interroge sur elle-même, sur ce qu'elle produit : des traces d'objectivation, (...) mais aussi de réflexion. Cet ouvrage est destiné aux chercheurs et enseignants chercheurs, mais aussi à tous ceux, et ils seront de plus en plus nombreux, qui, à l'écart des parti-pris et des dogmatismes, tentent de tracer leur chemin à des légitimations sociales et politiques en train de se faire. Mais, dès maintenant, elles tracent le chemin contre des illégitimations et des illégitimités globales advenues, dont la toute puissance serait apparemment le gage de leur pérennité. (shrink)

We present the paradigm of categories-as-syntax. We briefly recall the even stronger paradigm categories-as-machine-language which led from -calculus to categorical combinators viewed as basic instructions of the Categorical Abstract Machine. We extend the categorical combinators so as to describe the proof theory of first order logic and higher order logic. We do not prove new results: the use of indexed categories and the description of quantifiers as adjoints goes back to Lawvere and has been developed in detail in works of (...) R. Seely. We rather propose a syntactic, equational presentation of those ideas. We sketch the (quasi-equational) categorical structures for dependent types, following ideas of J. Cartmell (contextual categories). All these theories of categorical combinators, together with the translations from -calculi into them, are introduced smoothly, thanks to the systematic use of– - an abstract variable-free notation for -calculus, going back to N. De Bruijn, – - a sequent formulation of the natural deduction. (shrink)

Locke writes to Molyneux that he wants to give to the connection of ideas even more importance than he formerly did in the Essay. The study of the political and pedagogical works of Locke, and also Of the Conduct of the Understanding, contributes to extend the Lockean connection of ideas theory beyond its better-known uses (e.g. about error or the mastery of one’s passions), and it is suggested that the process of linking together and associating ideas is already effective at (...) the very basic and biological level of human existence. Whereas ordinary and regular connection of ideas supports what we may call adaptation, several pathological associations can be described as forms of inadaptation of the living being (1), as well as of the Self (2). Experience (3) is the third possible application of this study, because, while industry finds benefits in good connections, the association of ideas engages us in sterile relations with the world, and provokes several forms of madness. (shrink)

La femme de couleur libre fut un acteur économique et social dynamique des sociétés coloniales de la Caraïbe. Son étude permet d’illustrer sa place et sa capacité d’agir dans la société. Les donations, enregistrées dans le fonds des Hypothèques de la Martinique entre 1806 et 1830, offrent l’opportunité d’une approche singulière pour dresser le profil de ces femmes de couleur libres et entrevoir la richesse et les spécificités de leurs interactions sociales à une période où leur groupe connait une croissance (...) numérique et économique importante. L’article montre que leur statut particulier les incitait à s’organiser pour garantir la transmission des biens au sein de la famille, malgré l’absence d’union légitime ou encore à prendre en considération la présence de membres de membres esclaves de la famille. Enfin, il éclaire aussi la manière dont ces femmes mettent en œuvre des solidarités féminines particulières. (shrink)

Georg Misch, auteur d'une monumentale histoire de l'autobiographie, met en oeuvre les principes de Dilthey: le récit de la vie est aussi vieux que l'histoire, mais il se modifie selon les époques, et les détenninations qu'il reçoit à la Renaissance et à I' Âge classique l'orientent vers la description des lois de développement de l'individu.