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|Summary=Sir Isaac Newton (1642-1727) was a natural philosopher who lived and worked in England in the 17th and 18th century. Newton’s most notable contributions were made to the fields of physics, mathematics, and scientific method, which were so groundbreaking that he is currently considered to be one of the most important physicists in modern Western history.[[CiteRef::Janiak (2016)]] Philosophers of science credit Newton’s revolutionary theory of gravity and his experimental approach to conducting natural philosophy as outlined in his major work, The Principia, (Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica) to be the foundation for the dominant Newtonian mosaic which influenced much of late 18th and 19th century science.1 [[CiteRef::Janiak (2016)]] Some consider The Principia to be the work that initially created physics as its own scientific field separate from the umbrella of metaphysics and philosophy.1 Newton is also known for his contributions to the fields of alchemy and theology[0.introduction[CiteRef::Janiak (2016)]]|Historical Context=Although Newton’s curriculum at the University of Cambridge in the 1660’s would have consisted of Aristotelian-scholastic science, Newton is known to have distanced himself from classical metaphysics and instead studied the works of Réné Descartes, who’s work conceived the Cartesian mosaic of science that dominated much of 17th century European natural philosophy.[newtons philosophy [CiteRef::Janiak (2016)|pp. 13, 55]]

Both Newton’s physics and philosophy were heavily influenced by Descartes’ ideas. Although he disagreed with many of the theories about the natural world adopted in the Cartesian mosaic, it was clear that Newton viewed the Cartesian mosaic as a step forward from the preceding Aristotelian-scholastic one.[[CiteRef::Janiak (2016)|p. 55]. ] When structuring his view of the natural world, Descartes based his model on a Copernican view of the universe, as opposed to the classical geocentric understanding.[1.Newton’s philosophical analysis of space and time, p.37] Geocentrism was an important axiom to theories of motion developed under Aristotelian-scholasticism. [[CiteRef::Disalle (2004)|p. 37]] With the Earth at the centre of the universe, all motion could be explained causally according to whether the moving object in question existed in the terrestrial or celestial realm, which in that mosaic were thought to be fundamentally different.[Aristotle’s Natural Philosophy, Stanford]