Emilie du Châtelet was one of the most influential woman philosophers of the Enlightenment. Her writings on natural philosophy, physics, and mechanics had a decisive impact on important scientific debates of the 18th century. Particularly, she took an innovative and outstanding position in the controversy between Newton and Leibniz, one of the fundamental scientific discourses of that time.

The contributions in this volume focus on this "Leibnitian turn". They analyze the nature and motivation of Emilie du Châtelet's synthesis of Newtonian and Leibnitian philosophy. Apart from the Institutions Physiques they deal with Emilie du Châtelet's annotated translation of Isaac Newton's Principia.

The chapters presented here collectively demonstrate that her work was an essential contribution to the mediation between empiricist and rationalist positions in the history of science.

Autorentext
Ruth Hagengruber holds a chair in Philosophy at the University Paderborn, where she is head of the research areas History of Women Philosophers and Scientists and Philosophy and Computing Science. She studied Philosophy and History of Natural Sciences, with a concentration in the History of Geometry at the Ludwig-Maximilian-University in Munich. She received her Master's degree with a thesis on Plato's Symposium, her Ph.D. deals with Renaissance Metaphysics and Mathematics in the philosophy of Tommaso Campanella, Academia 1994. Ruth Hagengruber earned a certificate in Economics and wrote on Nutzen und Allgemeinheit. Zu einigen grundlegenden Problemen der Praktischen Philosophie, Academia 2000. Since 2001 she has been engaged in research in the area of Philosophy and Computation Science, documented also in Philosophy's Relevance in Information and Computing Science, Springer 2011. She is editor and author of several books and essays contributing to the History of Women in Philosophy, asVon Diana zu Minerva. Philosophierende Aristokratinnen des 17. Und 18. Jahrhunderts, 2010 Akademie; Klassische Philosophische Texte von Frauen. Texte vom 14. Bis zum 20. Jahrhundert, Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag 19982 et al.; Major contributions on Emilie Du Châtelet, Edith Stein, on the idea of a history of women philosophers from ancient times up to now. Currently she is preparing a textbook on women philosophers and is focusing on Economic Aspects in Political Philosophy, incorporating the writings of women philosophers in her research.

Zusammenfassung

Emilie du Châtelet was one of the most influential philosophers of the Enlightenment. Her writings on natural philosophy, physics and mechanics had a decisive impact on the important scientific debates of the 18th century.

Most notably, she took a novel and distinctive position in one of the fundamental scientific discourses of the day, the controversy between Newton and Leibniz.

The contributors to this volume focus on du Châtelet's synthesis of Newtonian and Leibnitian philosophy. The contributions presented here combine to confirm the work of this exceptional philosopher as an essential contribution to the mediation between empiricist and rationalist positions in the history of science.

Inhalt
Emilie Du Châtelet between Leibniz and Newton: The Transformation of Metaphysics, R. Hagengruber.- Maupertuis' Lettre sur la comète, H. Hecht.- Between Newton and Leibniz: Emilie du Châtelet and Samuel Clarke, S. Hutton.- Sancti Bernoulli orate pro nobis. Emilie du Châtelet's rediscovered Essai sur l'optique and her relation to the mathematicians from Basel, F. Nagel.- Leonhard Euler and Emilie Du Châtelet. On the post-Newtonian development of mechanics, D. Suisky.- Leibniz's quantity of force: a 'heresy'? Emilie Du Châtelets Institutions in the context of the vis viva controversy, A. Reichenberger.- From translation to philosophical discourse Emilie du Châtelet's commentaries on Newton and Leibniz, U. Winter.- Selected Bibliography Emilie Du Châtelet.