Newton's Metaphysics

Eric Schliesser is Professor of Political Science, with a focus on Political Theory, at the University of Amsterdam. In addition, he is Visiting Scholar at the Smith Institute for Political Economy and Philosophy, Chapman University. His research encompasses a variety of themes, ranging from the history of the natural sciences and forgotten 18th-century feminists to political theory, the history of political theory, and the assumptions used in mathematical economics. His interest in the influence of the Chicago school of economics has increasingly moved his research toward the study of the methodology and political role of economists as experts. His publications include his monograph, Adam Smith: Systematic philosopher and Public Thinker (2017), and with Sandrine Bergès, the translated and edited collection, Sophie de Grouchy's Letters on Sympathy: A Critical Engagement with Adam Smith's The Theory of Moral Sentiments (2019). He has edited numerous volumes including (inter alia) Newton and empiricism, with Zvi Biener, 2014; Sympathy, a History of a Concept (2015); and Ten Neglected Classics of philosophy (2017). Together with Chris Smeenk he is editing the Oxford Handbook of Newton. He keeps a daily blog Digressionsnimpressions.

Contents
Acknowledgments
Note on the text
Abbreviations
Introduction
1. Without God: Gravity as a Relational Quality of Matter in Newton's Treatise
2. Newton's substance monism, distant action, and the nature of Newton's empiricism
2a. Postscript
3. On reading Newton as an Epicurean
4. Newton and Spinoza: On motion and matter (and God, of course) (with Mary Domski)
5. Newtonian emanation, Spinozism, measurement and the Baconian origins of the laws of nature
6. The certainty, modality, and grounding of Newton's laws (with Zvi Biener)
7. Newton's philosophy of time
7a. Postscript
8. Newton's Modal Metaphysics and Polemics with Spinozism in the General Scholium
9. The Posidonian Argument: The Presupposition of Design in Natural Philosophy
Bibliography
Index