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Summary

In this chapter, I interpret section 6.361 of Wittgenstein’s Tractatus – containing Wittgenstein’s second reference to Heinrich Hertz in the book – in the context of the nearby framing remarks concerning the ‘law of causality’. Attention to the relevant details of Hertz’s work sheds light on a number of Wittgenstein’s remarks about mechanics in the 6.3s and, in particular, explains Wittgenstein’s claim that ‘What can be described can happen too, and what the law of causality is meant to exclude cannot even be described’ (6.362). For Wittgenstein, to describe events in causal terms is to describe them via an appeal to temporal and spatial asymmetries. However, no alternative is available: a description that did not appeal to such asymmetries would not be a description of anything. According to the Tractatus, descriptions are recognized as causal when they are embedded in a unified theoretical framework, but causal powers, understood as relations of material necessity, do not exist.

Summary

On 1 April 1758, Kant published a short essay on motion and rest that contained a clear illustration of how he approaches the fundamental principles of mechanics. Kant presents an attack first on the concept of absolute motion and then on a conception of inertia that rests on absolute motion. Kant then turns to criticize what he takes to be the standard conception of inertia, namely the force a body at rest has to resist another body changing its state. Kant proceeds to adduce two further arguments against the traditional notion of inertia based on difficulties that arise in explaining how a body at rest could nonetheless suddenly set itself in motion prior to impact; and how motion could still occur if action and reaction were equal and thus cancelled each other out. He explains the law of continuity, and derives rules of impact from his corrected concept of motion.

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Chapter 9 - ‘Normal Connections’ and the Law of Causality

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11 - New doctrine of motion and rest and the conclusions associated with it in the fundamental principles of natural science while at the same time his lectures for this half-year are announced (1758)

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Chapter 9 - ‘Normal Connections’ and the Law of Causality

Summary

11 - New doctrine of motion and rest and the conclusions associated with it in the fundamental principles of natural science while at the same time his lectures for this half-year are announced (1758)

Summary