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CHAIR'S STATEMENT FACULTY GRADUATE STUDENTS COLLOQUIUM CALENDAR UNDERGRADUATE PROGRAM GRADUATE PROGRAM GRADUATE PLACEMENT MASTER SCHEDULE UNDERGRADUATE BULLETIN GRADUATE BULLETIN ACADEMIC CALENDARS USC LIBRARIES CAS COMPUTING & IT USC COMPUTER SERVICES ABOUT COLUMBIA SC RESTRICTED ACCESS: Faculty | Graduate Students Search USC   THIS SITE		COLLOQUIA & CONFERENCES BEYOND FORM AND CONTENT: LESSONS FROM NEWTON'S PHILOSOPHY OF GEOMETRY   Mary Domski Department of Philosophy California State Fresno   February 13, 2004 Friday, 4:00pm-6:00pm Nursing, Room 127   In recent discussions of Newton's importance to the history of modern philosophy, greater weight tends to be placed on philosophical reactions to Newton's science rather than on Newton's own philosophical approach to his work. In this paper, I want to show that there are rewards to adopting this latter project by examining Newton's philosophy of geometry. By comparing Newton's practical-pragmatic understanding of geometry with Descartes' mechanistic-algebraic geometry, I argue that we have good reason to reevaluate some of the historiographical assumptions commonly brought to seventeenth century mathematics. I also show that due consideration of Newton's geometry brings us to a clearer picture of the seventeenth century philosophical concern with choosing a mathematical formalism appropriate to a chosen method of natural philosophy.
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