Buridan copy
BURIDAN’S IMPETUS HYPOTHESIS
Carol Skrenes
Program for the History and Philosophy of Science
Department of Philosophy
University of California at Irvine
BURIDAN’S IMPETUS HYPOTHESIS
Winner, 1998 Humanities Graduate Essay Award
Abstract: I interpret the concept of impetus in the writings of the Paris Terminist, Jean Buridan (14th c.) as an accidental form that functions as a motive force according to Aristotle’s fundamental law of motion. I suggest how Buridan may have come to develop his particular hypothesis. I defend the traditional view that
Buridan’s impetus is permanent, and in this respect a forerunner of Newtonian inertia, against the suggestion of Stillman Drake that Buridan’s impetus is self-expending. In the last section I discuss whether
Buridan anticipated Galileo’s law of acceleration.
Outline:
Introduction
Section I: Aristotle and the chemistry of motion
Section II: Buridan on projectile motion
Section III: The application of the impetus hypothesis to the acceleration of free fall
Section IV: Is impetus permanent?
Section V: Does Buridan anticipate Galileo’s law of acceleration?
Buridan developed his impetus hypothesis in response to two very venerable puzzles in the Aristotelian account of motion. The puzzles had existed, unsolved, for a millenium and a half by the time Buridan took them up.
Perhaps they are insoluble within the Aristotelian conceptual scheme. In any case, Buridan tried his hand at them, and the quality of his effort earned him a place in the medieval tradition. Without ultimately moving beyond the Aristotelian system himself, he helped pave the way for the massive shift in conceptual schemes we now refer to as the scientific revolution.
By now the story of that shift has had many tellings. Those written since the groundbreaking work of Pierre
Duhem and Anneliese Maier typically include, as precursors to the great transition, at least two 14th c. developments: the mean speed theorem developed at Merton College, Oxford, and the
Carol Skrenes
Program for the History and Philosophy of Science
Department of Philosophy
University of California at Irvine
BURIDAN’S IMPETUS HYPOTHESIS
Winner, 1998 Humanities Graduate Essay Award
Abstract: I interpret the concept of impetus in the writings of the Paris Terminist, Jean Buridan (14th c.) as an accidental form that functions as a motive force according to Aristotle’s fundamental law of motion. I suggest how Buridan may have come to develop his particular hypothesis. I defend the traditional view that
Buridan’s impetus is permanent, and in this respect a forerunner of Newtonian inertia, against the suggestion of Stillman Drake that Buridan’s impetus is self-expending. In the last section I discuss whether
Buridan anticipated Galileo’s law of acceleration.
Outline:
Introduction
Section I: Aristotle and the chemistry of motion
Section II: Buridan on projectile motion
Section III: The application of the impetus hypothesis to the acceleration of free fall
Section IV: Is impetus permanent?
Section V: Does Buridan anticipate Galileo’s law of acceleration?
Buridan developed his impetus hypothesis in response to two very venerable puzzles in the Aristotelian account of motion. The puzzles had existed, unsolved, for a millenium and a half by the time Buridan took them up.
Perhaps they are insoluble within the Aristotelian conceptual scheme. In any case, Buridan tried his hand at them, and the quality of his effort earned him a place in the medieval tradition. Without ultimately moving beyond the Aristotelian system himself, he helped pave the way for the massive shift in conceptual schemes we now refer to as the scientific revolution.
By now the story of that shift has had many tellings. Those written since the groundbreaking work of Pierre
Duhem and Anneliese Maier typically include, as precursors to the great transition, at least two 14th c. developments: the mean speed theorem developed at Merton College, Oxford, and the