The Living Forces Debate across Europe (1686?–1743?)

The Living Forces Debate across Europe (1686?–1743?

Online 5-6 June 2025

The workshop is organized in collaboration with the Center for the History of Women Philosophers and Scientists and the Istituto per la Storia del Pensiero Filosofico e Scientifico Moderno (ISPF-CNR).

The debate on living forces in early modern Europe was a pivotal intellectual conflict concerning the nature of motion, energy, and the fundamental principles governing the physical world. The conventional framing of the living forces debate situates its chronological boundaries between 1686, marked by the publication of Leibniz’s Brevis demonstratio, and 1743, with the first edition of d’Alembert’s Traité de Dynamique. However, this periodization warrants critical reconsideration, both on historical and theoretical grounds.

Emerging in the late 17th and early 18th centuries, primarily revolving around the competing ideas of René Descartes, who advocated for the conservation of momentum (mass times velocity), and Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, who introduced the concept of vis viva (living force), proposing that the true measure of force was proportional to mass times the square of velocity.

The CFP deadline is 20 April

Any other information on the workshop webpage