The seventeenth century saw the consolidation of a new cosmological paradigm in the work of Isaac Newton. Where Copernicus, Galileo, and Kepler had expanded and mathematised the horizons of possibility, Newton unified these insights into a mechanistic and law-governed cosmos. Universal gravitation and the laws of motion reframed the universe as an ordered system in which celestial and terrestrial phenomena were subject to the same principles.
In this cosmos, possibility is construed as calculable and repeatable. Motion is no longer explained through intrinsic purposes or divine hierarchies, but through universal laws that describe how bodies relate in space and time. Potential is not arbitrary; it is mathematically determinable, bounded by the constraints of force, mass, and distance. The cosmos becomes a relational field whose possibilities can be predicted, modelled, and manipulated through calculation.
The Newtonian vision marks the triumph of mechanism: the universe operates like a vast clockwork, each component interacting through fixed relations that unfold according to universal rules. This mechanical construal of possibility emphasises predictability and control, making the cosmos both intelligible and technologically actionable.
The modulatory voice of Pierre-Simon Laplace amplifies this determinist trajectory. His hypothetical “demon” — an intelligence that, knowing the position and momentum of all particles, could predict the entire past and future — epitomises the ideal of total calculability. In this vision, potential collapses into necessity: what can occur is fully determined by what already exists. The cosmos becomes a perfectly transparent mechanism, leaving little room for indeterminacy or openness.
Yet within this apparent closure lies a profound reorientation of construal. Possibility, once tethered to divine order or teleological purpose, is now framed as a matter of lawful relation and calculable prediction. The Newtonian cosmos provides both constraint and power: it narrows the horizon of potential to the mechanically necessary, while vastly expanding the human capacity to anticipate and intervene in the unfolding of the universe.
In sum, Newton’s synthesis inaugurates a cosmos of deterministic intelligibility — a world in which construal means calculation, and possibility is identified with the predictable motion of matter within universal law. This vision, though later challenged by relativity and quantum theory, defined the modern imagination of cosmic order for centuries.
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