---
_id: '34707'
abstract:
- lang: eng
  text: Of the many outstanding female philosophers of the European Enlightenment,
    Emilie Du Châtelet excelled as a physicist, a philosopher, and a mathematician,
    as well as a Bible critic. She was famous in her lifetime and was not completely
    forgotten thereafter. Among her admirers, correspondents and friends were the
    most acknowledged scholars of her time, including Voltaire, Clairault, Maupertuis,
    Diderot, Helvetius, La Mettrie, Buffon, Christian Wolff, Leonard Euler, and Johann
    II Bernoulli. Her philosophical work enjoyed high reputation and her opus magnum,
    the Institutions physiques, was translated into Italian and German and proved
    her to be an intellectual of European stature. Its defense of living forces and
    its implied forecast into dynamics as well as her methodological grounding of
    scientific knowledge as hypothetical, impacted philosophy and science. Reality
    must by nature escape us. What we perceive are phenomena. Du Châtelet explains
    the function of space and time to trace us back to the origin of phenomena. Her
    influence on Kant is evident. Next to her writings in physics, mathematics, philosophy,
    language, and logic, she contributed to morality and ethics. Du Châtelet left
    an opus of quite systematic breadth. This impressive publishing activity excels
    in the amount of its scientific and philosophical production to which a vast collection
    of manuscripts must be added.She argued against prejudice and idolatry in philosophy
    and science. Science is a cooperative undertaking over history and beyond nations.
    Her moral writings align with ideas of the French materialists. Du Châtelet translated
    and commented on Newton’s Principia, preparing thus the fertile soil of the generation
    of physicists to come in France.
author:
- first_name: Ruth
  full_name: Hagengruber, Ruth
  id: '198'
  last_name: Hagengruber
  orcid: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3360-6335
citation:
  ama: 'Hagengruber R. Du Châtelet, Émilie (1706–1749). In: <i>Encyclopedia of Early
    Modern Philosophy and the Sciences</i>. Springer International Publishing; 2021.
    doi:<a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-20791-9_410-1">10.1007/978-3-319-20791-9_410-1</a>'
  apa: Hagengruber, R. (2021). Du Châtelet, Émilie (1706–1749). In <i>Encyclopedia
    of Early Modern Philosophy and the Sciences</i>. Springer International Publishing.
    <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-20791-9_410-1">https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-20791-9_410-1</a>
  bibtex: '@inbook{Hagengruber_2021, place={Cham}, title={Du Châtelet, Émilie (1706–1749)},
    DOI={<a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-20791-9_410-1">10.1007/978-3-319-20791-9_410-1</a>},
    booktitle={Encyclopedia of Early Modern Philosophy and the Sciences}, publisher={Springer
    International Publishing}, author={Hagengruber, Ruth}, year={2021} }'
  chicago: 'Hagengruber, Ruth. “Du Châtelet, Émilie (1706–1749).” In <i>Encyclopedia
    of Early Modern Philosophy and the Sciences</i>. Cham: Springer International
    Publishing, 2021. <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-20791-9_410-1">https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-20791-9_410-1</a>.'
  ieee: 'R. Hagengruber, “Du Châtelet, Émilie (1706–1749),” in <i>Encyclopedia of
    Early Modern Philosophy and the Sciences</i>, Cham: Springer International Publishing,
    2021.'
  mla: Hagengruber, Ruth. “Du Châtelet, Émilie (1706–1749).” <i>Encyclopedia of Early
    Modern Philosophy and the Sciences</i>, Springer International Publishing, 2021,
    doi:<a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-20791-9_410-1">10.1007/978-3-319-20791-9_410-1</a>.
  short: 'R. Hagengruber, in: Encyclopedia of Early Modern Philosophy and the Sciences,
    Springer International Publishing, Cham, 2021.'
date_created: 2022-12-21T11:54:55Z
date_updated: 2023-01-12T10:06:49Z
department:
- _id: '615'
- _id: '14'
- _id: '519'
doi: 10.1007/978-3-319-20791-9_410-1
keyword:
- aura Bassi Luise Gottsched Immanuel Kant Dourtous de Mairan Johann II Bernoulli
  Algarotti Buffon d’Alembert La Mettrie Principle of contradiction Hypotheses Enlightenment
  Leibniz-Clarke Correspondence Living forces Dead forces
- happiness Space Imaginary beings Monads Epicurus Ethics Women philosophers Newton’s
  laws Principia Motion inertia Active force Vis viva Vis mortua Hypothetic reasoning
  Hypotheses
- a priori principles
- Experience
- Dead forces
- Living forces
- Energy Dynamics
language:
- iso: eng
place: Cham
publication: Encyclopedia of Early Modern Philosophy and the Sciences
publication_identifier:
  isbn:
  - '9783319207919'
  - '9783319207919'
publication_status: published
publisher: Springer International Publishing
status: public
title: Du Châtelet, Émilie (1706–1749)
type: book_chapter
user_id: '14931'
year: '2021'
...