Transcript here - Vrije Universiteit Brussel

Programme: ‘Feeding on the nectar of the gods’: Appropriations of Isaac Newton’s
thought, ca. 1700–1750
5 July 2016
08.15-08.50 a.m.: Welcome and coffee
08.50-8.55 a.m.: Word of welcome by the Vice Rector of Research, Prof. dr. Patrick De Baetselier
(Vrije Universiteit Brussel)
08.55-9.00 a.m.: Short introduction to the conference theme by Steffen Ducheyne
09.00-10.00 a.m.: Keynote 1 (Chair: Steffen Ducheyne):
Mordechai Feingold (Caltech): Newton as an Enlightenment emblem
10.00-11.00 a.m.: Keynote 2 (Chair: Scott Mandelbrote):
Rob Iliffe (University of Oxford): Newtonian methodology and the role of the imagination
in the Enlightenment
11.00-11.30 a.m.: Coffee break
11.30 a.m.-12.30 p.m.: Contributed papers 1 (Chair: Niccolò Guicciardini):
Andrea Reichenberger (Ruhr-Universität Bochum): Émilie du Châtelet’s interpretation of the
laws of motion in the light of eighteenth-century mechanics
Jip Van Besouw (VUB): Explaining the simple wedge: ‘Newtonians’ and Leibniz’s force in
the eighteenth century
12.30-14.00 p.m.: Lunch break
14.00-15.00 p.m.: Keynote 3 (Chair: Stephen D. Snobelen):
Steffen Ducheyne (VUB): Appropriations of Newton in the Dutch Republic
15.00-16.00 p.m.: Keynote 4 (Chair: Rob Iliffe):
Scott Mandelbrote (University of Cambridge): Newtonianism and religion in France
16.00-16.30 p.m.: Coffee break
16.30-18.00 p.m.: Contributed papers 2 (Chair: Tamás Demeter):
Pieter Present (VUB): The role and development of the concept of ‘laws of nature’ in the
work of Petrus Van Musschenbroek
Marco Storni (École Normale Supérieure de Paris): Newton in France: The controversy over
the earth’s shape
Jean-Olivier Richard (Johns Hopkins University): Louis-Bertrand Castel, Anti-Newtonian
Natural Philosopher?
6 July 2016
09.00-10.00 a.m.: Keynote 5 (Chair: Mordechai Feingold):
Niccolò Guicciardini (Università degli Studi di Bergamo): The reception of Newtonianism in
eighteenth-century Geneva and Lausanne
10.00-11.00 a.m.: Contributed papers 3 (Chair: Jip Van Besouw):
Dimitris Petakos (University of Athens): Under the Shadow of an English Apple Tree:
diversified appropriations of Newtonian natural philosophy (1700–1720)
Philipp Reisner (Heinrich-Heine-Universität Düsseldorf): Cotton Mather’s Reception of Isaac
Newton’s Mechanics
11.00-11.30 a.m.: Coffee break
11.30 a.m.-12.30 p.m.: Keynote 6 (Chair: Steffen Ducheyne)
Stephen D. Snobelen (University King’s College, Halifax): Newton’s science and religion in the
public sphere, 1687–1760
12.30 p.m.-14.00 a.m.: Lunch break
14.00-15.00 p.m.: Keynote 7 (Chair: Kirsten Walsh)
Tamás Demeter (Hungarian Academy of Sciences): The development of Newtonian styles in
Enlightenment Scotland
15.00-16.00 p.m.: Contributed papers 4 (Chair: Yannick Van den Abbeel)
Kirsten Walsh (University of Bucharest): Fitting Newton into the Philosophical Picture
Rosalind Powell (University of Bristol): Newton’s Opticks and the Language of Light
16.00 p.m.: Reception and farewell