Online research in philosophy

This paper argues that inertia is an inherent principle and that inertia and Newton’s First Law are in this way natural in the Aristotelian sense. Indeed, many difficulties concerning inertia and the First Law of Motion may be resolved by understanding them through an Aristotelian conception of nature. The paper proceeds by examining the characteristic activities of inertia, the Aristotelian idea of nature, various accounts of inertia as force and as inert, and the manner in which an Aristotelian conception of (...) nature improves on these accounts. It concludes that the unsuccessful attempts by physicists to find an extrinsic origin of inertia, though they may eventually lead to new discoveries, support the view that inertia is an inherent principle of nature. Newton himself understood the principle of inertia through an eclectic but largely nonAristotelian conception of nature and matter and by the problematic notion of a vis inertiae. However, Newton’s general philosophy of nature should be distinguished from the more specific content of the First Law and of inertia itself. A general Aristotelian conception of nature can resolve many of Newton’s difficulties. Thus, inertia and the First Law of Motion are reasonably regarded as natural in the general Aristotelian sense. (shrink)

I argue that the Aristotelian definition of motion,“the act of what exists potentially insofar as it exists potentially,” and the mover causality principle,“whatever is moved is moved by another,” are compatible with Newton’s First Law of Motion, which treats inertialmotion as a state equivalent to rest and which requires no sustaining mover for such motion. Both traditions treat motion as such as requiring an initial, generating mover but not necessarily a sustaining motor. Through examining examples of motion as treated by (...) Newtonian physics, and through arguing that potential energy is Aristotelian potentiality, I argue that the First Law is understandable according to the Aristotelian definition as an incomplete act with a twofold ordination of the same potentiality. I then propose that, through the notion of spacetime, Special and General Relativity instantiate motion as a unity of differentiated prior and posterior parts that do not coexist in reality. (shrink)