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News
Lisa Downing to Present 'The Decline of Strict Mechanism' at Dowling College
Dowling College will welcome Lisa Downing, Ph.D., Associate Professor, Department of Philosophy, University of Illinois, Chicago, as she presents "The Decline of Strict Mechanism" on Wednesday, May 4 from 1:00 – 2:20 p.m. in Room 422 of the Racanelli Center for Learning Resources at the Rudolph Campus in Oakdale.
The Decline of Strict Mechanism
A central feature of the scientific revolution was the rise of mechanist physics, according to which all bodies should be regarded as intricate machines, made of parts possessing only size, shape, motion, and perhaps solidity, interacting only by contact at impact. Strict mechanists did their best to resist the apparent implication of Newton's theory of gravity -- that attractive powers would have to be added to their minimal ontologies. This paper examines some aspects of the decline of strict mechanism, arguing that strict mechanism contained the seeds of its own destruction. (Its minimal ontology favored occasionalism, which then removed all grounds for resisting attractionism.)
Lisa Downing received her Ph.D. from Princeton University. Her primary areas of interest are early modern philosophy and the history of the philosophy of science. More specifically, she has worked on mechanist conceptions of body and their justification, debates surrounding gravity/attraction, and changing conceptions of scientific explanation in the early modern period. Her publications include "The Status of Mechanism in Locke's Essay" (Philosophical Review, 1998) and "Berkeley's Natural Philosophy and Philosophy of Science" in the Cambridge Companion to Berkeley. She has taught at the University of Pennsylvania and Yale University, and has been a Fellow of the Dibner Institute for the History of Science. She is currently working on a book on empiricism and Newtonianism, among other projects.
This event is free and open to the public. For more information, please contact Dr. Christian Perring, Chair, Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies, Dowling College, at 631-244-3349.
About Dowling College
Dowling College is an independent, coeducational college that serves more than 6,500 students at
its historic Rudolph Campus on the banks of the Connetquot River in Oakdale, NY, and the 105-acre
Brookhaven Campus in eastern Long Island and a business center located near the Nassau-Suffolk
border in Melville. Dowling offers Bachelor′s, Master′s, and Doctoral degrees in several
disciplines through its four schools: Arts and Sciences, Aviation, Business, and Education.
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