The Triumph of Newtonian Science. Mechanistic Metaphysics, Positivism and the Fragmentation of Truth

The Unity of Truth: A Trilogy Reuniting Science, Philosophy and Theology through History is a threefold endeavor conducted according to a single, unifying conviciton: thruth is one, and the fragmentation of knowledge in the modern world is neither inevitable, nor intellectually healthy. What we call "science,” "philosohpy," and "theology" were once interwoven in a coherent vision of reality grounded in metaphysical realism and confidence in the intelligibility of crteation. Over time, this unity was ruptured – first subtly, then dramatically – through a series of philosophical and cultural shifts. The purpose of this trilogy is to trace that arc: from unity, to rupture, to the possibility of recovery.

This present volume, the second in the trilogy, documents the extraordinary achievements of the Scientific Revolution, as well as its uninteded metaphysical consequences. Newton himself remained deeply metaphysical, but his successors gradually transformed his mathematical descriptions into a mechanistic worldview which led to various forms of reductionism. The volume traces how this mechanistic turn prepared the ground for positivism, scientism, and ideological momevements that attempted to replace metaphysics and theology with narrow conceptions of empirical knowledge.