Newton’s Sensorium: Anatomy of a Concept

Clarke, Samuel

“…At least as important, though, is the question of the world's ability to affect God. When Newton published the Optics, it included references to infinite space as the "Sensory" (sensorium) of God, a view he had been suggesting since at least 1673 (Kassler 2018). Leibniz's initial letter to Caroline singled out this view for criticism because it suggests that not everything depends on God; God apparently needs an organ to perceive things rather than knowing them by producing them (Clarke 1738).…”

Newton, the sensorium of God, and the cause of gravity

“…See also, Connolly 2014 Although this present paper is now following upon the publication of two very recent major studies: Connolly 2014; and Henry and McGuire 2018. There has also recently appeared a broader study of all of Newton's discussions of the sensorium, animal, human, and divine: Kassler 2018. published in 1961 By Alexandre Koyré and I. B. Cohen, entitled "The Case of the Missing Tanquam" (Koyré and Cohen 1961).…”

“…Newton does not discuss the concept of God's sensorium in his correspondence, and if he discussed it with Samuel Clarke when he was defending Newton's view in the correspondence with Leibniz, it must have been conducted orally by these two neighbors, and nothing was written down (Meli 2016, 590-92). Jamie Kassler has recently surveyed everything that Newton has to say about sensories-in animals and humans, as well as these two references to God's sensory-but nothing in Newton's discussions of animal and human sensories helps us to understand why Newton developed the idea of a corresponding sensorium of God (Kassler 2018). 10 Accordingly, we must proceed by a close reading of the two comments themselves, and their immediate context in the Queries.…”