Concept

Émilie du Châtelet

Overview

Gabrielle Émilie Le Tonnelier de Breteuil, Marquise du Châtelet (French: [emili dy ʃɑtlɛ] ; 17 December 1706 – 10 September 1749) was a French mathematician and physicist.

Her most recognized achievement is her philosophical magnum opus, Institutions de Physique (Paris, 1740, first edition; Foundations of Physics). She then revised the text substantially for a second edition with the slightly modified title Institutions physiques (Paris, 1742). It circulated widely, generated heated debates, and was translated into German and Italian in 1743. The Institutions covers a wide range of topics, including the principles of knowledge, the existence of God, hypotheses, space, time, matter and the forces of nature. Several chapters treat Newton's theory of universal gravity and associated phenomena. Later in life, she translated into French, and wrote an extensive commentary on, Isaac Newton's Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica. The text, published posthumously in 1756, is still considered the standard French translation to this day.

Du Châtelet participated in the famous vis viva debate, concerning the best way to measure the force of a body and the best means of thinking about conservation principles. Posthumously, her ideas were represented prominently in the most famous text of the French Enlightenment, the Encyclopédie of Denis Diderot and Jean le Rond d'Alembert, first published shortly after du Châtelet's death.

She is also known as the intellectual collaborator with and romantic partner of Voltaire. In the two centuries since her death, numerous biographies, books, and plays have been written about her life and work. In the early twenty-first century, her life and ideas have generated renewed interest.

Overview adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0; see the article history for authors).

Possible passages

Found by search and not yet checked by a person; they may only mention the idea in passing.

For this system, which is called that of _occasional causes_ (because it teaches that God acts on the body at the instance of the soul, and _vice versa_), besides introducing perpetual miracles to establish communication [157] between these two substances, does not obviate the derangement of the natural laws obtaining in each of these same substances, which, in the general opinion, their mutual influence would cause.
Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, Theodicy Essays on the Goodness of God, the Freedom of Man and the Origin of Evil
States what Émilie du Châtelet is; the author is tied to Émilie du Châtelet in the knowledge graph.
Read the chapter · Open in the reader
Thus must one no more complain of the multitude of books than of the multitude of citizens. A man who wishes to learn a little about his existence, and who has no time to waste, is quite embarrassed. He wishes to read simultaneously Hobbes, Spinoza, Bayle who wrote against them, Leibnitz who disputed with Bayle, Clarke who disputed with Leibnitz, Malebranche who differed from them all, Locke who passed as having…
Voltaire, Voltaire's Philosophical Dictionary
States what Émilie du Châtelet is; the author is tied to Émilie du Châtelet in the knowledge graph.
Read the chapter · Open in the reader
After having shown by his sublime theory the course and inequalities of the planets, he subjects comets to the same law. The orbit of these fires (unknown for so great a series of years), which was the terror of mankind and the rock against which philosophy split, placed by Aristotle below the moon, and sent back by Descartes above the sphere of Saturn, is at last placed in its proper seat by Sir Isaac Newton. He…
Voltaire, Letters on England
The author is tied to Émilie du Châtelet in the knowledge graph.
Read the chapter · Open in the reader

Émilie du Châtelet

Overview

Possible passages

Philosophers who discussed Émilie du Châtelet

Related ideas

Place in the tradition