LES DUALITÉS DE LA DYNAMIQUE LEIBNIZIENNE

Abstract

We associate here, under the naming of ‘dualities’ of the Leibnizian dynamics, distinctions of several orders: chronological, in that the invention in 1690 of the very word ‘dynamics’ separates two periods in the establishment of the doctrine of movement and corporeal nature – conceptual, in that the ‘New science’ defines itself by the association of the acquired concept of power or force with the new one of action – methodical, because the introduction of the concept of action allows the establishment of an a priori demonstration whereas until then only an a posteriori argument had been used – structural, with the conjunction of dynamics ‘abstracted from things’ and ‘concrete’ dynamics ‘concerning what happens in the system of things’. All these dualities form a coherent network, which characterizes the singularity of the Leibnizian dynamics in the margins of history of classic science