A physicist assesses the French Enlightenment

Abstract

Professor Andrzej Staruszkiewicz has taken his article on Newton in a journal for physics teachers as an opportunity for merciless criticism of French Enlightenment. In order to justify his low appraisal of intellectual qualifications of the representatives of this philosophical movement, especially of Voltaire, he quotes the opinion of the ardent monarchist Gaxotte. He also takes strained interpretations of two quotations from Voltaire’s book on Newton as a proof of his lack of understanding of physical contents of „Principia”. These and other contents of the article seem to justify the suspicion of its author of the intention to discount his authority from theoretical physics for imposing on non-specialist readers his own philosophical antipathies.