ABSTRACT
The aim of this paper is to study Leibniz and Boyle’s notion of nature and to analyze their respective foundations of mechanism. In particular, we defend that Leibniz’s De ipsa natura (1698) is articulated as a response to Boyle’s A Free Enquiry into the Vulgarly Received Notion of Nature (1686) and, furthermore, that the initial goal of the Leibnizian text is to revise Boyle’s account of nature and to offer a new foundation to mechanism introducing an internalist conception of law of nature.
Keywords
Leibniz; Boyle; nature; mechanism; force