Émilie Du Châtelet - Metaphysics & Science

EMILIE DU CHÂTELET METAPHYSICS & SCIENCE

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R U T H H A G E N G R U B E R , U N I V E R S I T Y PA D E R B O R N

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2600 YEARS WOMEN PHILOSOPHERS – A SYSTEMATIC & HISTORICAL

OUTLINE

RUTH HAGENGRUBER AT YEDİTEPE ÜNİVERSİTESİ , İSTANBUL

OCTOBER 23 rd-24th , 2013

UNIVERSITY OF [email protected]/PHILOSOPHIE/HAGENGRUBER

Why is it necessary to research the history of women philosophers?

© R. Hagengruber2006

Timeline Women Philosophers

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500 B.C. 400 A.D.

1600 1700 1800 1900 2000

Hagengruber 2015 IHMEELLINEN EMILIE (c) hagengruber2006

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Hagengruber 2015 IHMEELLINEN EMILIE

1. Ad se ipsa2. Locke debate3 Hypotheses4. Enlightenment5. Ethics

Selected Philosophical Works I of Du Châtelet


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[LetChBI] + [LetChBII] Du Châtelet, E. 1958. Les Lettres de la marquise Du Châtelet: publiées par Theodore Besterman. 2 vols. Genf: Institut et Musée Voltaire.[LetSav1738] Du Châtelet, E. 1738. Lettre sur les Eléments de la Philosophie Newton. Paris. Journal des sçavans: 534–41. [DissCh1739] Du Châtelet, E. 1739. Dissertation sur la nature et la propagation du feu. In Recueil des pièces qui ont remporté le prix de l’Académie royale des Sciences en 1738, ed. Académie royale des Sciences, 85–168. Paris: Imprimerie royale.[DissCh1744] Du Châtelet, E. 1744. Dissertation sur la nature et la propagation du feu. Paris: Prault Fils.[Inst1740] Du Châtelet, E. 1740. Institutions de Physique. Paris: Prault.[MaiCh1741] DuChâtelet, E. 1741. Réponse de madame la marquise Du Chastellet à la Lettre que M. de Mairan, secrétaire perpétuel de l’Académie royale des Sciences, lui a écrite le 18 février 1741 sur la question des forces vives. Bruxelles: Foppens.[Inst1741Am] Du Châtelet, E. 1741. Institutions de physique. Amsterdam: Pierre Mortier. [Inst1741Lo] Du Châtelet, E. 1741. Institutions de physique. London: Paul Vaillant.[Inst1742Am] Du Châtelet, E. 1742. Institutions physiques de madame la marquise Du Chastellet adressés à M. son fils: Nouvelle édition, corrigée et augmentée considérablement par l'auteur. Amsterdam: Aux dépens de la Compagnie.

Selected Philosophical works II of/on Du Châtelet


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[Inst1743Ve] Du Châtelet, E. 1743. Istituzioni di Fisica di Madama la Marchesa du Chastelet indiritte a suo figliuolo. Traduzione dal linguaggio francese nel toscano, accresciuta con la Dissertazione sopra le forze motrizi di M. de Mairan. Venedig: Presso Giambatista Pascali.[Naturlehre1743] Du Châtelet, E. 1743. Der Frau Marquisinn von Chastellet Naturlehre an ihren Sohn. Erster Theil nach der zweyten Französischen Ausgabe übersetzet von Wolfgang Balthasar Adolf von Steinwehr Prof. Publ. Ord. auf der Universitet zu Frankfurt an der Oder, derselben Bibliothecario, und der Königl. Preußischen Societet der Wissenschaften Mitgliede. Halle/Leipzig: Rengerische Buchhandlung.[DissCh1744] Du Châtelet, E. 1744. Dissertation sur la nature et la propagation du feu. Paris: Prault Fils.[PrincChat1756] Du Châtelet, E., and I. Newton. 1756. Principes mathématiques de la philosophie naturelle: par feue Madame la marquise Du Chastellet. 2 vols. Paris: Desaint & Saillant.[PrincChat1759] Du Châtelet, E., and I. Newton, 1759. Principes mathématiques de la philosophie naturelle de Newton: Par feue madame la marquise Du Chastellet. 2 vols. Paris: Desaint et Saillant.

Du Châtelet, Emilie. 1961. Discours sur le bonheur. Introduction et notes de Robert Mauzi. Paris: les Belles-Lettres. English translations cited according to:

Emilie du Châtelet. 2009. Philosophical and Scientific Writings, translated and edited by Judith Zinsser and Isabelle Bour. Chicago: Chicago University Press

Wade, Ira O. 1947. Studies on Voltaire. With some unpublished papers of Mme Du Châtelet. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Citations are taken from: Hagengruber, Ruth (ed.) 2011. Emilie du Châtelet between Leibniz and Newton. Dordrecht: Springer.

Who was Emilie du Châtelet?

Hagengruber 2015 IHMEELLINEN EMILIE (c) hagengruber

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Diderot wrote that there had been two wonderful moments in his life, one of them being due to Du Châtelet and her reply to his Lettre sur les aveugles Kant wrote his first reflections on natural philosophy on the occasion of the publication of her pamphlet on the living forces. Ampère spoke of her as a “Genius in Geometry” as she was said to have been able to simply “multiply nine figures by nine others in her head”. And while some of her interpreters at that time attributed her outstanding achievement more to her rank than to her philosophy, as is also the case today, her contemporary, a young poet named Helvétius, admired the “sublime Emilie” for her dedication to science and her disregard for social standing, being an example that rebutted the prejudices of her time. “Voltaire praised her as the Minerve of the French Enlightenment: „Madame Du Châtelet had her part in the work Minerva dictated and I wrote.“ Voltaire: Eléments de la philosophie de Newton 1738 (for all citations see, if not otherwise: Hagengruber, 2011, 1-59).

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Du Châtelet, ad se ipsa (1735)


“Since I began to live with myself, and to pay attention to the price of time, to the brevity of life, to the uselessness of the things one spends one’s time with in the world, I have wondered at my former behavior: at taking extreme care of my teeth, of my hair and at neglecting my mind and my understanding.”

.

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Emilie du Châtelet on gender in society

“I feel the full weight of prejudice that excludes us (women) so universally from the sciences, this being one of the contradictions of this world which has always astonished me, as there are great countries whose laws allow us to decide their destiny, but none where we are brought up to think”.


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1. Ad se ipsa2. Locke Debate3. Hypotheses4. Enlightenment5. Ethics

The Locke Debate


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Du Châtelet confirms the necessity of indigenous and a priori principles in order to limit the relativistic guideline of cultures and circumstances and of relativistic and positivistic ethics: there has to be something serving as the vanishing projection point, which must be valid for everyone in the world: “Le besoin de la societé éxige cette loy comme son fondement”

A universal law is necessary because there has to be something which is valid under all circumstances, for all cultures and religions, and which is valid for women and men.

If there is no such beginning (with a universal law, shared by all – metaphysical assumption) there is no “chain of knowledge”, “no numbers”, and “two and two could then make as well 4 as 6”

[Hagengruber 2011, 7-13]

Du Châtelet on Thinking Matter


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“Que pensez vous Mme de ces admirables metamorphoses de la matière?”

Dissertation on fire 1738/44: “the best memoir written on this topic”

“thinking matter” is a “ontologic confusion” [Hagengruber 2011, 47-51]

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Du Châtelet, on Free will & Physics


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“The only thing that puzzles me at present is free will, for in the end I believe myself free and I do not know if this quantity of force, which is always the same in the universe, does not limit this. Initiating motion, is that not to produce in nature a force that did not previously exist? Now, if we do not have the power to set something in motion, we are not free..”

Emilie du Châtelet: on Hypotheses

Hagengruber 2015 IHMEELLINEN EMILIE (c)

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“One of the mistakes of some philosophers of our time is to want to banish hypotheses from physics, they are as necessary as the scaffolding in a house being built; it is true that, when the building is completed, the scaffolding becomes useless, but it could not have been erected without it. […]“

1706-1749

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Nationalist Tendency in Science?


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“The search for truth is the only thing in which the love of your country must not prevail, and it is surely very unfortunate that the opinions of Newton and of Descartes have become a sort of national affair. […]“

1706-1749

English translation: Zinsser, Judith (editor). 2009. Emilie du Châtelet. Philosophical and Scientific Writings. Chicago: Chicago University Press, pp. 117, 119f.

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Emilie du Châtelet: Du Bonheur


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« On croit communément qu’il est difficile d’être heureux, & on n’a que trop de raison de le croire; mais il serait plus aisé de le devenir, si chez les hommes les réflexions & le plan de conduit en précédoient les actions »

1706-1749

Voltaire‘s epilogue


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In September 1749, shortly after her death, Voltaire wrote to their friend, the comte d’Argental:

“Je viens de relire des matériaux immenses de métaphysique que madame du Châtelet avait assemblés avec une patience et une sagacité qui m’effraient…C’était le génie de Leibniz avecde la sensibilité”

1706-1749

“I am my own person and only responsible to myself for everything I am, what I say, and what I do. There may be metaphysicians and philosophers whose knowledge is greater than mine. I haven’t met them yet. But even they are only weak human beings with faults, and when I count my gifts, I think I may say that I am inferior to none”.

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Émilie Du Châtelet - Metaphysics & Science

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