Sublime Émilie - Insights into science and art through Kaija Saariaho’s opera. Kaija Saariaho’s monodrama received its Finnish premiere April 2nd, 2015 at the Finnish National Opera. The title character Émilie du Châtelet (1706–1749) was a significant French Enlightenment mathematician, physicist and philosopher whose love of knowledge and science was equally matched by a passion for men, jewellery and gambling. Marquise du Châtelet is known as the first woman in the history of science to achieve significant results in mathematics and physics. The scientific community and general audiences had a chance to learn about Émilie’s unique life and work on the eve of the premiere of the opera. A group of international researchers and artists who share an interest in her story came together for a series of lectures, discussions and music performances in Helsinki on 1–2 April 2015. The event was prepared by the AvaraOpera collective, operating at University of the Arts Helsinki, and it is produced in collaboration with the Finnish National Opera. The event is jointly funded by University of the Arts and the Finnish Cultural Foundation. http://bit.ly/sublimeemilie

1. EMILIE DU CHÂTELET
METAPHYSICS & SCIENCE
1 . - 2 . 4 . 2 0 1 5
I H M E E L L I N E N É M I L I E
S U O M E N K A N S A L L I S O O P P E R A
H E L S I N K I , F I N L A N D
w w w . o o p p e r a . f i / o h j e l m i s t o / i h m e e l l i n e n _ e m i l i e
R U T H H A G E N G R U B E R ,
U N I V E R S I T Y P A D E R B O R N
r u t h . h a g e n g r u b e r @ u n i - p a d e r b o r n . d e
w w w . u p b . d e / p h i l o s o p h i e / h a g e n g r u b e r

2. 2600 YEARS WOMEN PHILOSOPHERS –
A SYSTEMATIC & HISTORICAL OUTLINE
R U T H H A G E N G R U B E R
A T Y E D İ T E P E Ü N İ V E R S İ T E S İ , İ S T A N B U L
O C T O B E R 2 3 r d - 2 4 t h , 2 0 1 3
U N I V E R S I T Y O F P A D E R B O R N
R U T H . H A G E N G R U B E R @ U N I - P A D E R B O R N . D E
W W W . U P B . D E / P H I L O S O P H I E / H A G E N G R U B E R
Why is it necessary to research the
history of women philosophers?
© R. Hagengruber2006

3. Timeline Women Philosophers
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500 B.C. 400 A.D. 1600 1700 1800 1900 2000
Hagengruber 2015 IHMEELLINEN EMILIE (c) hagengruber2006

4. 4
Hagengruber 2015 IHMEELLINEN EMILIE
1. Ad se ipsa
2. Locke debate
3 Hypotheses
4. Enlightenment
5. Ethics

5. Selected Philosophical Works I of Du Châtelet
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[LetChBI] + [LetChBII] Du Châtelet, E. 1958. Les Lettres de la marquise Du Châtelet: publiées par
Theodore Besterman. 2 vols. Genf: Institut et Musée Voltaire.
[LetSav1738] Du Châtelet, E. 1738. Lettre sur les Eléments de la Philosophie Newton. Paris. Journal des
sçavans: 534–41.
[DissCh1739] Du Châtelet, E. 1739. Dissertation sur la nature et la propagation du feu. In Recueil des
pièces qui ont remporté le prix de l’Académie royale des Sciences en 1738, ed. Académie royale des
Sciences, 85–168. Paris: Imprimerie royale.
[DissCh1744] Du Châtelet, E. 1744. Dissertation sur la nature et la propagation du feu. Paris: Prault
Fils.
[Inst1740] Du Châtelet, E. 1740. Institutions de Physique. Paris: Prault.
[MaiCh1741] DuChâtelet, E. 1741. Réponse de madame la marquise Du Chastellet à la Lettre que M. de
Mairan, secrétaire perpétuel de l’Académie royale des Sciences, lui a écrite le 18 février 1741 sur la
question des forces vives. Bruxelles: Foppens.
[Inst1741Am] Du Châtelet, E. 1741. Institutions de physique. Amsterdam: Pierre Mortier.
[Inst1741Lo] Du Châtelet, E. 1741. Institutions de physique. London: Paul Vaillant.
[Inst1742Am] Du Châtelet, E. 1742. Institutions physiques de madame la marquise Du Chastellet
adressés à M. son fils: Nouvelle édition, corrigée et augmentée considérablement par l'auteur.
Amsterdam: Aux dépens de la Compagnie.

6. Selected Philosophical works II of/on Du Châtelet
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[Inst1743Ve] Du Châtelet, E. 1743. Istituzioni di Fisica di Madama la Marchesa du Chastelet indiritte a suo figliuolo. Traduzione
dal linguaggio francese nel toscano, accresciuta con la Dissertazione sopra le forze motrizi di M. de Mairan. Venedig: Presso
Giambatista Pascali.
[Naturlehre1743] Du Châtelet, E. 1743. Der Frau Marquisinn von Chastellet Naturlehre an ihren Sohn. Erster Theil nach der
zweyten Französischen Ausgabe übersetzet von Wolfgang Balthasar Adolf von Steinwehr Prof. Publ. Ord. auf der Universitet zu
Frankfurt an der Oder, derselben Bibliothecario, und der Königl. Preußischen Societet der Wissenschaften Mitgliede. Halle/Leipzig:
Rengerische Buchhandlung.
[DissCh1744] Du Châtelet, E. 1744. Dissertation sur la nature et la propagation du feu. Paris: Prault Fils.
[PrincChat1756] Du Châtelet, E., and I. Newton. 1756. Principes mathématiques de la philosophie naturelle: par feue Madame la
marquise Du Chastellet. 2 vols. Paris: Desaint & Saillant.
[PrincChat1759] Du Châtelet, E., and I. Newton, 1759. Principes mathématiques de la philosophie naturelle de Newton: Par feue
madame la marquise Du Chastellet. 2 vols. Paris: Desaint et Saillant.
Du Châtelet, Emilie. 1961. Discours sur le bonheur. Introduction et notes de Robert Mauzi. Paris: les Belles-Lettres.
English translations cited according to:
Emilie du Châtelet. 2009. Philosophical and Scientific Writings, translated and edited by Judith Zinsser and Isabelle Bour. Chicago:
Chicago University Press
Wade, Ira O. 1947. Studies on Voltaire. With some unpublished papers of Mme Du Châtelet. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Citations are taken from:
Hagengruber, Ruth (ed.) 2011. Emilie du Châtelet between Leibniz and Newton. Dordrecht: Springer.

7. Who was Emilie du Châtelet?
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Diderot wrote that there had been two wonderful moments in his life, one of
them being due to Du Châtelet and her reply to his Lettre sur les aveugles
Kant wrote his first reflections on natural philosophy on the occasion of the
publication of her pamphlet on the living forces.
Ampère spoke of her as a “Genius in Geometry” as she was said to have been
able to simply “multiply nine figures by nine others in her head”.
And while some of her interpreters at that time attributed her outstanding
achievement more to her rank than to her philosophy, as is also the case
today, her contemporary, a young poet named Helvétius, admired the
“sublime Emilie” for her dedication to science and her disregard for social
standing, being an example that rebutted the prejudices of her time. “
Voltaire praised her as the Minerve of the French Enlightenment:
„Madame Du Châtelet had her part in the work Minerva dictated and I wrote.“
Voltaire: Eléments de la philosophie de Newton 1738
(for all citations see, if not otherwise: Hagengruber, 2011, 1-59).

8. Du Châtelet, ad se ipsa (1735)
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“Since I began to live with myself, and to pay
attention to the price of time, to the brevity of life, to
the uselessness of the things one spends one’s time
with in the world, I have wondered at my former
behavior: at taking extreme care of my teeth, of my
hair and at neglecting my mind and my
understanding.”
.

9. Emilie du Châtelet on gender in society
“I feel the full weight of prejudice that excludes us
(women) so universally from the sciences, this
being one of the contradictions of this world which
has always astonished me, as there are great
countries whose laws allow us to decide their
destiny, but none where we are brought up to
think”.
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10. 10
Hagengruber 2015 IHMEELLINEN EMILIE
1. Ad se ipsa
2. Locke Debate
3. Hypotheses
4. Enlightenment
5. Ethics

11. The Locke Debate
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 Du Châtelet confirms the necessity of indigenous and a priori
principles in order to limit the relativistic guideline of cultures
and circumstances and of relativistic and positivistic ethics:
there has to be something serving as the vanishing projection
point, which must be valid for everyone in the world: “Le
besoin de la societé éxige cette loy comme son fondement”
 A universal law is necessary because there has to be
something which is valid under all circumstances, for all
cultures and religions, and which is valid for women and men.
 If there is no such beginning (with a universal law, shared by
all – metaphysical assumption) there is no “chain of
knowledge”, “no numbers”, and “two and two could then
make as well 4 as 6”
[Hagengruber 2011, 7-13]

12. Du Châtelet on Thinking Matter
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 “Que pensez vous Mme de ces admirables
metamorphoses de la matière?”
 Dissertation on fire 1738/44: “the best memoir
written on this topic”
 “thinking matter” is a “ontologic confusion”
[Hagengruber 2011, 47-51]

13. 13
Hagengruber 2015 IHMEELLINEN EMILIE
1. Ad se ipsa
2. Locke Debate
3. Hypotheses
5. Enlightenment
6. Ethics

14. Du Châtelet, on Free will & Physics
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“The only thing that puzzles me at present is free will,
for in the end I believe myself free and I do not know if
this quantity of force, which is always the same in the
universe, does not limit this. Initiating motion, is that
not to produce in nature a force that did not previously
exist? Now, if we do not have the power to set
something in motion, we are not free..”

15. Emilie du Châtelet: on Hypotheses
Hagengruber 2015 IHMEELLINEN EMILIE (c)
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“One of the mistakes of some philosophers of our time is
to want to banish hypotheses from physics, they are as
necessary as the scaffolding in a house being built; it is
true that, when the building is completed, the scaffolding
becomes useless, but it could not have been erected
without it. […]“
1706-1749

16. 16
Hagengruber 2015 IHMEELLINEN EMILIE
1. Ad se ipsa
2. Locke Debate
3. Hypotheses
4. Enlightenment
5. Ethics

17. Nationalist Tendency in Science?
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hagengruber
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“The search for truth is the only thing in which the love of
your country must not prevail, and it is surely very
unfortunate that the opinions of Newton and of Descartes
have become a sort of national affair. […]“
1706-1749
English translation: Zinsser, Judith (editor). 2009. Emilie du Châtelet.
Philosophical and Scientific Writings. Chicago: Chicago University Press, pp.
117, 119f.

18. 18
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hagengruber
1. Ad se ipsa
2. Locke Debate
3. Hypotheses
4. Enlightenment
5. Ethics

19. Emilie du Châtelet: Du Bonheur
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« On croit communément qu’il est difficile d’être
heureux, & on n’a que trop de raison de le croire;
mais il serait plus aisé de le devenir, si chez les
hommes les réflexions & le plan de conduit en
précédoient les actions »
1706-1749

20. Voltaire‘s epilogue
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In September 1749, shortly after her death, Voltaire
wrote to their friend, the comte d’Argental:
“Je viens de relire des matériaux immenses de
métaphysique que madame du Châtelet avait
assemblés avec une patience et une sagacité qui
m’effraient…C’était le génie de Leibniz avec
de la sensibilité”
1706-1749

21. Hagengruber 2015 IHMEELLINEN EMILIE
Influences and
Impacts: on and of Du
Châtelet
© hagengruber2006

22. “I am my own person and only
responsible to myself for
everything I am, what I say, and
what I do. There may be
metaphysicians and philosophers
whose knowledge is greater than
mine. I haven’t met them yet. But
even they are only weak human
beings with faults, and when I
count my gifts, I think I may say
that I am inferior to none”.
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