Abstract
Abstract
Standard narratives about physical teleology say its death was a fait accompli of the Scientific Revolution, but the principle of least action (PLA) has been taken to instantiate teleology’s survival into Enlightenment physics. Other scholars claim this PLA-based teleological metaphysics fell to general philosophical attacks on final causes. None of these narratives fully captures the philosophical interest of its demise. It illustrates a metaphysics being refuted because it could not be coherently modeled in mathematics, hence directly through mathematization and not by philosophical argument or empirical test.
Publisher
Cambridge University Press (CUP)
Subject
History and Philosophy of Science,Philosophy,History
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