History Workshop, Work-In-Progress Seminar: Clara Carus, "The Notion of Space in Émilie Du Châtelet"

Abstract: My talk has two parts. The first part is methodological. Until now, Du Châtelet’s theory of space has always been interpreted in relation to simple beings; Du Châtelet’s term for Leibnizian monads. I argue that we should refrain from importing simple beings into an interpretation of Du Châtelet’s theory of space. I have two arguments for this: Firstly, Du Châtelet does not mention simple beings once in the space chapter (chapter 5 of the Institutions Physiques) and when she does introduce simple beings in chapter 7, she does not spell out how her theory of simple beings is to fit together with her theory of space. This brings me to my second argument: Du Châtelet’s theory of simple beings and her theory of space are not congruent with each other. The problem, however, lies in the theory of simple beings, not in her theory of space. If we mix in simple beings into her theory of space, we thus make it significantly less convincing than it actually is. Instead of trying to square Du Châtelet’s theory of space with her theory of simple beings we should read Du Châtelet’s theory of space as aiming to develop a notion of space that explains all of our spatial cognitions: our spatial understanding of a tree, the fact that we cannot see or touch space, our spatial understanding of a triangle, and our representation of space as uniform homogenous extension. In the second part of the paper, I demonstrate that Du Châtelet’s theory of space is well-suited to explaining all of these spatial cognitions and that it is thus convincing.