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Title

A Comment on Solari and Natiello's Constructivist View of Newton's Mechanics.

Authors

Lopes Coelho, R.

Abstract

The present comment on Solari and Natiello's paper (Found. Sci. 2019) values their constructivist approach to Newtonian Mechanics. My critical point concerns only the link between the concept of force and phenomena. It will be shown that the idealised form of the law of inertia created by the authors avoids criticism of the law and that this law (idealised or not) leads to the concept of force as the cause of acceleration. This concept appears in the authors' reconstruction as an assumption. They add that this assumption must be contrasted with experiments. Following this, I address an experiment, in which the force that is taken as the cause of acceleration, is not present in the phenomenon at stake. As it thus does not satisfy the property of locality, which any cause has to, force cannot be a cause.

Subjects

MECHANICS (Physics)

Publication

Foundations of Science, 2020, Vol 25, Issue 3, p703

ISSN

1233-1821

Publication type

Academic Journal

DOI

10.1007/s10699-020-09651-7