{"title":"Maupertuis’s Principle of Least Action: Epistemology and Metaphysics","authors":"Marco Storni","doi":"10.6092/ISSN.2421-4124/9029","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"The paper deals with Pierre-Louis Moreau de Maupertuis’s (1698-1759) writings on the principle of least action (PLA). I discuss Maupertuis’s philosophical interpretation of the PLA by analysing three of his papers (1740, 1744, 1746), in order to assess the overall consistency of his argument. As I shall argue, Maupertuis presents the PLA as a universal principle of nature, this being at odds with the empiricist inspiration of his epistemology. Maupertuis’s attempt to introduce conceptual elements borrowed from the Leibnizian tradition into a Newtonian-inspired framework creates in fact a tension that is difficult to overcome.","PeriodicalId":36096,"journal":{"name":"Montesquieu.it","volume":"35 1","pages":"1-20"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0000,"publicationDate":"2019-02-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"2","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Montesquieu.it","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.6092/ISSN.2421-4124/9029","RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":null,"ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q4","JCRName":"Arts and Humanities","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 2
Abstract
The paper deals with Pierre-Louis Moreau de Maupertuis’s (1698-1759) writings on the principle of least action (PLA). I discuss Maupertuis’s philosophical interpretation of the PLA by analysing three of his papers (1740, 1744, 1746), in order to assess the overall consistency of his argument. As I shall argue, Maupertuis presents the PLA as a universal principle of nature, this being at odds with the empiricist inspiration of his epistemology. Maupertuis’s attempt to introduce conceptual elements borrowed from the Leibnizian tradition into a Newtonian-inspired framework creates in fact a tension that is difficult to overcome.
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