Abstract
AbstractThis chapter argues that when Newton drafted the first edition of the Principia in the mid-1680s, he thought that (at least a part of) the cause of gravity is the disposition inherent in any individual body, but that the force of gravity is the actualization of that disposition; a necessary condition for the actualization of the disposition is the actual obtaining of a relation between two bodies having the disposition. The cause of gravity is not essential to matter because God could have created matter without that disposition. Nevertheless, at least a part of the cause of gravity inheres in individual bodies and were there one body in the universe it would inhere in that body. The force of gravity is neither essential to matter nor inherent in matter, because it is the actualization of a shared disposition. We can distinguish among (i) accepting gravity as causally real, (ii) positing the cause(s) of the properties of gravity, (iii) making claims about the mechanism or medium by which gravity is transmitted.
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