THIAGO ASTUN CIRINO

The purpose of this project is to investigate how the principle of causality is central to the genesis of what has been conventionally called “classical physics”. Thus, through the key to interpretation allowed by the notion of themata by the philosopher of science Gerald Holton, we seek to understand the transformation of cause and effect relationships between the studies of Descartes and Newton as nature becomes increasingly mathematized. Therefore, there are two moments in the project, the first of which contrasts causality in the scholastic tradition with Cartesian movement and the second focuses on the emergence of the notion of Newtonian force in contrast to Descartes’ physics. Thus, the research is currently in the first moment, which seeks to understand the construction of a new science of movement present in the work Principles of Philosophy (1644). Therefore, at the current stage, the research is focused on how Cartesian mechanism through laws, notions of matter and movement, without the mathematical formalism present in Newton's Principia (1687), breaks with the medieval theory of Impetus, which explains the causes of movements based on intrinsic properties of bodies.