Readings in the History of Science

The History of Science group will resume weekly meetings starting with our next one on May 14. In our last meeting on May 7 we took a look at cause in Newton's mechanical and optical work. Cause in the counterfactual sense drew a bit of fire.In our May 14 meeting we will continue the discussion of cause with an overview article by Stathis Psillos, 'A glimpse of the secret connexion: Harmonizing mechanisms with counterfactuals'. The article can be downloaded at http://users.uoa.gr/%7Epsillos/PapersI/66-Causation%20and%20Counterfactuals.pdf . Going forward the group will be focusing more on developments in 19th century mathematics.
Subsequent readings will include:
Jan Rychlewski, ‘The origins of Newton’s mechanics. mass, force, and gravity’
Sandro Caparrini and Craig Fraser, ‘Mechanics in the Eighteenth Century’
Helmut Pulte, ‘Jacobi’s Criticism of Lagrange: The Changing Role of Mathematics. If you need a copy of the Janiak or Ducheyne articles send a note to [kacheolme@gmail.com](mailto:kacheolme@gmail.com) with Janiak Ducheyne in the subject line.

Note: after our May 21 meeting we will resume meeting weekly.