Timeline for Euler's Master's Thesis
Current License: CC BY-SA 4.0
9 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Apr 23, 2021 at 8:30 | comment | added | Denis Serre | @HollisWilliams. And he called his pet "Monsieur" ! | |
| Jan 5, 2021 at 18:55 | comment | added | Jim Stasheff | Was there not French resistance to Newton who was BRITISH | |
| Jan 4, 2021 at 18:51 | comment | added | Hollis Williams | One amusing sidenote which you probably know is that despite Descartes' official view, he did keep a pet dog which he was apparently very fond of and didn't treat it as if were a mechanism. | |
| Jan 4, 2021 at 14:41 | comment | added | Denis Serre | @Yakk. Why not ? But then, it is a matter of definition: what do we mean by mechanism ? Anyway, this is not my philosophy. I do believe in our free will, and even to that of many animals. | |
| Jan 4, 2021 at 14:35 | comment | added | Yakk | @DenisSerre To be fair, many philosophers now think that animals are no more than mechanisms, they just think that humans are also no more than mechanisms, and that mechanisms are a lot more than what you might naively think. :) | |
| Jan 3, 2021 at 18:31 | comment | added | Denis Serre | Well, I should not compare with today's highly respected physicists. Descartes displayed a bright side and a dark one. He was definitively a great philosopher and as well an outstanding mathematician. But about natural sciences, including Physics, he made many wrong statements. We are aware of his theory of vortices (!), but he also based the so-called Snell-Descartes law upon wrong premisses, and thought that animals were nothing but mechanisms. Also, he did not believe in the vaccum, against Pascal. | |
| Jan 3, 2021 at 15:42 | comment | added | Hollis Williams | Thanks for these edits, this is interesting as I never knew the detailed history behind it or the acceptance depending on country. It makes sense that anything contradicting Descartes would be rejected because of the esteem he commanded. Almost sounds like the situation we have today where anything goes if it is said by highly respected physicists... | |
| Jan 3, 2021 at 9:46 | comment | added | Denis Serre | The situation regarding the recognition of Newton's gravitation theory is not simple. See my edits. | |
| Jan 3, 2021 at 0:07 | history | answered | Hollis Williams | CC BY-SA 4.0 |