Newton and Knowledge of the Universe

Abstract

Like Bacon, Descartes, and Galileo, Newton identified method as the key to discovering truths about the world, and like theirs, Newton’s method conflated induction and deduction in making claims about reality. Against Robert Hooke, Newton claimed that data spoke for themselves, as in his claim that his prism experiments directly proved that sunlight really was a combination of colors. In his theory of light, Newton claimed that his data allowed him to “deduce” that light was made up of corpuscles, against Christiaan Huygens’ claim that light was composed of spherical waves. In Newton’s mechanics, which became the cornerstone of modern mathematical physics, neither his definitions of space, time, matter, and motion nor his famous three laws of motion were deduced from experimental data. In his dismissal of Descartes’ method of reasoning and in his battles with Leibniz over the nature of reality, Newton was forced to confront the logical weakness of his ontological claims.