I have read a nice paper
Jordi Cat
Into the ‘regions of physical and metaphysical chaos’: Maxwell’s
scientific metaphysics and natural philosophy of action (agency,
determinacy and necessity from theology, moral philosophy and history to
mathematics, theory and experiment)
Studies in History and Philosophy of Science 43 (2012) 91–104
It was interesting to see how questions discussed at this list (physics,
theology, mind and body) have been answered by Maxwell.
The abstract of the paper:
"Maxwell’s writings exhibit an enduring preoccupation with the role of
metaphysics in the advancement of science, especially the progress of
physics. I examine the question of the distinction and the proper
relation between physics and metaphysics and the way in which the
question relies on key notions that bring together much of Maxwell’s
natural philosophy, theoretical and experimental. Previous discussions
of his attention to metaphysics have been confined to specific issues
and polemics such as conceptions of matter and the problem of free will.
I suggest a unifying pattern based on a generalized philosophical
perspective and varying expressions, although never a systematic or
articulated philosophical doctrine, but at least a theme of action and
active powers, natural and human, intellectual and material, with
sources and grounds in theology, moral philosophy and historical
argument. While science was developing in the direction of professional
specialization and alongside the rise of materialism, Maxwell held on to
conservative intellectual outlook, but one that included a rich
scientific life and held science as part of a rich intellectual,
cultural and material life. His philosophical outlook integrated his
science with and captured the new Victorian culture of construction and
work, political, economic, artistic and engineering."
Evgenii
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http://blog.rudnyi.ru/2012/10/maxwell-on-metaphysics-and-theology.html
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