Leiden University Student Repository

Weil--Kennedy, Jacques (2024)

Making of Traditional Modernity: French Newtonianism

Bachelor thesis | Filosofie (BA)

This paper examines the tensions found between J.B. Shank and M. Feingold in their discussion of Newton's integration in 17th-century French-Enlightenment. Our perception today of this period in history wherein a major cultural, social, and methodological shift with regards to science, history, and notions of modernity occured, can be seen to harbor the potential ambiguities generated by a historicist lense. To attempt to understand how a period perceived as foundational for scientific modernity may become historicized itself and become a figurehead of a new tradition, a comparative historiographic analysis of our current accounts of the French integration of Newtonian science may help understand how we come to understand historical moments of intellectualism when it is interlinked with current hegemonic tradition.

Newton

17th century French Enlightenment

historiography

history of science

modernity

Author

Weil--Kennedy, Jacques

Faculty

Faculty of Humanities

Specialisation

Global and comparative perspectives

Supervisors

McAllister, J.W.

ECTS Credits

10

Language

en