Newton’s disputes with Hooke and Leibniz: Institutional, scientific and personal aspects.

Abstract This paper discusses the often fractious personal and academic relationships that Isaac Newton enjoyed with Robert Hooke and Gottfried Leibniz. It suggests that their disagreements operated at several levels: intellectual, methodological, institutional and personal. The disputes were related to a number of pre-existing rules of behaviour, notably those governing the correct ways to assign intellectual property and to manage disputes relating to it. Although these procedural codes concerned intellectual issues, they drew in part on etiquette in polite or genteel society more generally. The disputes were to some extent made possible by the appearance of new academies and societies, which provided new fora for disseminating results and for managing disagreements between scholars over extended distances. The presence of these intellectual institutions meant that there were novel aspects to the rules that governed these contests and indeed entirely new rules. Indeed, it was the way that the combatants attempted to get their preferred rules of engagement accepted more generally by others and the ways in which they manipulated them that conditioned the nature of their disagreements. More broadly, the capacity to engage in such contests was shaped by national pride, the ability to attract powerful support for respective causes and finally by the personalities of the individuals involved, which are perhaps best revealed in these situations.