Historical-critical digital edition of the manuscript version of Émilie Du Châtelet‘s Institutions de physique, Bibliothèque Nationale de France (BNF), signature: Français 12265

• Applicant: Professorin Dr. Ruth Hagengruber
• Subject Area: History of Philosophy
• Term: since 2020
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 435124693

The work report on the first funding phase describes the results of the project of transcribing the total of 21 chapters of the Paris manuscript of the philosopher, physicist and mathematician Émilie Du Châtelet, which was ishortened to two years. The application discusses the technical adjustments made as well as the changes in content that mark the progress of the work to date. Special attention deserves the revision, considered necessary in the project, to divide the manuscript into versions beyond the presentation of the variants. This will increase the amount of work and time required as well as the quantitative scope of the edition. However, this procedure seems indispensable in order to fulfil the project's objectives. The versions also allow the sources of Leibniz and Wolff to be clearly integrated in phases. This also makes the online edition more reader-friendly and considerably more accurate in its depiction of the process of creation of this text material, which is so important for the study of the Enlightenment. The presentation is supplemented by a list of the research results that have so far emerged from the project and their communication through international online offerings, which are primarily aimed at young scholars and involve an international community. The follow-up application refers to the goals already mentioned in the first application, which enables the transcription, the critical and historical presentation and the commentary on this work, which is so important for the German Enlightenment. It will be supplemented and expanded by the outline in versions and variants supporting the project goal, as well as by a legible printed version in modern French, which will provide an important basis for further research into Du Châtelet's philosophy and make comprehensible the transformational achievement in its recourse to Leibniz and Newton in this Parisian manuscript, which was influential in its time but then forgotten.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants