Vis vim vi: declinations of force in Leibniz's dynamics (Q2363582)

The author presents a deep investigation of Leibniz's dynamics which was closely connected to Leibniz's basic definition of force as \(mv^2\). The most important of Leibniz's relevant manuscripts is \textit{Dynamica: de potentia et legibus naturae corporea} (1689). In the introduction, the author provides a brief history of Leibniz's dynamics project, starting with texts from 1676, up to the ``end'' of dynamics 1700--1701 (p.\ 5). These final mature conceptions remained valid for Leibniz in subsequent writings, e.g., in his controversy with Samuel Clarke in 1716. In the second chapter, the author presents Leibniz's dynamics project as a theory of structural causation, i.e., ``the form of causation that correlates one cause to a multiple set of correlated effects'' (p.\ 15). Leibniz's conserved quantity \(mv^2\) is seen as the equipollence of full effect and entire cause. The author argues that the causality of force (\textit{vis}) can be ``understood through \textit{potentia}, as a structural property'' (p.\ 39). The relation between force (\textit{vis}), power (\textit{potentia}), action (\textit{actio}) as he product of formal effect (\(ms\)) and velocity (\(v\)), and causation ist discussed. In Chapter 3, the author deals with central components of Leibniz's dynamics, among them the principle of the equivalence of hypotheses according to which the Ptolemaic, Tychonic, and Copernican cosmological models are geometrically equivalent. Kepler maintained this principle in order to show the theoretical superiority of Copernicus' heliocentricism, which was not evident in the beginning. In Chapter 4, the relation between continuity and causation is discussed. The author argues that ``the continuity of motion is a necessary feature of the phenomena of motion independent of the doctrine of \textit{vis} qua cause of motion'' (p.\ 69). The relationship between cause and effect should be interpreted ``through a structural division between a domain of continuous extended motion and a domain of non-extended \textit{vires} where the latter is the cause of the former'' (p.\ 69). Chapter 5 concludes the three-part presentation of the central architectonic components of dynamics by discussing the principle of the equipollence of cause and effect. The author traces back Leibniz's different interpretations of this principle ``in order to move from a dynamics based on final causation (teleology) to that of formal cause (\textit{via} the concept of \textit{actio})'' (p.\ 93). In the final chapter, the author relates Leibniz's dynamics with its doctrine of inherent substantial forms to his mature metaphysical doctrine of a hierarchy of monads. He shows that Leibniz's dynamics converges by the time with his fundamental ontology as represented in his theory of monads.