In search of the historical Newton: on Part III of Dmitri Levitin’s The Kingdom of Darkness

Abstract

I review Part III of Dmitri Levitin's Kingdom of Darkness, itself a book-length study of Isaac Newton's life and works. I focus my attention on Levitin's interpretation of Newton's natural philosophy. On the negative side, Levitin argues that there is no metaphysics in Newton's natural philosophy and, moreover, that Newton was deeply and explicitly opposed to metaphysics. On the positive side he maintains that, for Newton, natural philosophy was the search for mathematically-expressible regularities in the phenomena; no more, and no less. In my review, I explore how we should understand the term ‘metaphysics' in Levitin's book, how his reading of Newton relates to a positivist reading (something he eschews), and the extent to which Newton’s natural philosophy includes the investigation of causes.