Dr. Emmanuel I. Archibong
Abstract
Force, the paper contends has a material and immaterial dimensions bringing about the experience of motion, change of state and direction of an object. While IsaacNewton systematized the concept of force using mathematical postulates in his three laws of motion and the scientific method of observation and experimentation, it didn’t erode the metaphysical underpinnings of the concept. The first, second, and third laws of motion provide an ontological truth, though with the fact of force being descriptive without stating what force is in itself. The paper interrogates the material and factual claims of force as being scientific from its ontological derivatives such as motion, velocity, acceleration, mass, distance, change, gravitation, relativity, and space-time, arguing that force does not strictly adhere to the scientific method of observation and experimentation. The paper further extrapolates the meaning of force and examines some metaphysical themes from the determination of the material status of the concept. The paper employed the method of criticism in tackling the problem that force has an ambivalent nature of the material and immaterial, with one serving as the missing link of the other. Furthermore, except perhaps for linguistic convenience, force doesn’t tell what it is in itself as a concept in modern science. Thus the findings of the paper reveal that the categories of the mind can delineate the immaterial from the material in a complementary manner, thereby forcing the object of both material (scientific) and immaterial (metaphysical) investigation with varied implications for man’s social existential experience when pushed to one extreme.
