{"id":3819,"date":"2015-04-06T16:56:24","date_gmt":"2015-04-06T04:56:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.otago.ac.nz\/emxphi\/?p=3819"},"modified":"2015-04-11T11:04:42","modified_gmt":"2015-04-10T23:04:42","slug":"experimental-philosophy-and-mechanical-philosophy-ii-the-case-of-robert-boyle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.otago.ac.nz\/emxphi\/experimental-philosophy-and-mechanical-philosophy-ii-the-case-of-robert-boyle\/","title":{"rendered":"Experimental Philosophy and Mechanical Philosophy II: The Case of Robert Boyle"},"content":{"rendered":"

Peter Anstey writes …<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

What is the precise relation between experimental philosophy and mechanical philosophy in the seventeenth century? In my last post<\/a> I showed how neither Henry More nor Henry Stubbe were particularly clear about this. In this post I examine the view of Robert Boyle.<\/p>\n

Boyle is sometimes credited with coining the English term \u2018mechanical philosophy\u2019* and he was certainly the first person to use the term \u2018experimental philosophy\u2019 in a book title. In 1663 he published Of the Usefulness of Experimental Philosophy<\/em> which was soon followed by Henry Power\u2019s Experimental Philosophy<\/em> of 1664.<\/p>\n

If we look at frequencies of use in Boyle\u2019s writings, it turns out that he used the term \u2018experimental philosophy\u2019 roughly twice as often as \u2018mechanical philosophy\u2019 or \u2018mechanical hypothesis\u2019. This raw fact is\u00a0in itself rather telling for those recent historiographical debates over the nature and status of mechanical philosophy in early modern philosophy that almost entirely ignore experimental philosophy. However, the key question is: Were the terms synonyms for Boyle or did they denote two different things?<\/p>\n

The best early statement of Boyle\u2019s view of the content of experimental philosophy is in the \u2018Proemial Essay\u2019 to Certain Physiological Essays<\/em> first published in 1661. He starts with a criticism of previous natural philosophers such as Aristotle and Campanella:<\/p>\n

they have too hastily, and either upon a few Observations, or at least without a competent number of Experiments, presum\u2019d to establish Principles, and deliver Axioms. (Works of Robert Boyle<\/em>, 1999\u20132000, 2: 13)<\/p>\n

What experimental philosophers should do instead is:<\/p>\n

set themselves diligently and industriously to make Experiments and collect Observations, without being over-forward to establish Principles and Axioms, believing it uneasie to erect such Theories as are capable to explicate all the Phaenomena of Nature, before they have been able to take notice of the tenth part of those Phaenomena that are to be explicated. (Works of Robert Boyle<\/em>, 2: 14)<\/p>\n

This clearly has to do with the role of observation and experiment in relation to theory in the acquisition of knowledge about nature. Now let\u2019s see how Boyle defines the mechanical philosophy. In The Excellency and Grounds of the Mechanical Hypothesis<\/em> (aka<\/em> the mechanical or corpuscular philosophy) Boyle states the kernel of the view as follows:<\/p>\n

the Universe being once fram\u2019d by God, and the Laws of Motion being setled and all upheld by His incessant concourse and general Providence; the Ph\u00e6nomena of the World \u00a0thus constituted, are Physically produc\u2019d by the Mechanical affections of the parts of Matter, and what they operate upon one another according to Mechanical Laws. (Boyle Works<\/em>, 8: 104)<\/p>\n

The mechanical affections referred to here are the shape, size, motion and texture of corporeal bodies.<\/p>\n

Now this is really quite different from experimental philosophy. For, it is the sort of theory that one should arrive at as a result of practising experimental philosophy. This is why Boyle\u2019s book The<\/em> Origin of Forms and Qualities<\/em> has a \u2018speculative part\u2019, which outlines the theoretical content of the mechanical philosophy, and a \u2018historical (or experimental) part\u2019, which provides experimental support for the speculative theory. Here is how he describes the relation between the two parts:<\/p>\n

it was very much wish\u2019d, that the Doctrines of the new Philosophy (as tis call\u2019d) [i.e. mechanical philosophy] were back\u2019d by particular Experiments; the want of which I have endeavour\u2019d to supply, by annexing some, whose Nature and Novelty I am made believe will render them as well Acceptable as Instructive.<\/p>\n

Thus, for Boyle, experimental philosophy and mechanical philosophy are entirely distinct: the former provides the evidential grounds of the latter. This is why, as Dmitri Levitin has shown, Boyle prefers Democritus to Epicurus. In Boyle\u2019s view, the former based his atomism on experimental philosophy, the latter on speculative philosophy. (Levitin, \u2018The experimentalist as humanist: Robert Boyle on the history of philosophy\u2019, Annals of Science<\/em>, 71, 2014, 149\u201382).<\/p>\n

It may be that some philosophers and even natural philosophers conflated experimental philosophy with mechanical philosophy, but in Boyle\u2019s mind they were distinct.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

* Actually, the question turns out to be slightly more complicated than it looks because Henry More used the term \u2018mechanical hypothesis\u2019 in 1653 (An Antidote against Atheism<\/em>, 44) and when Boyle first introduces the term in 1661 in Certain Physiological Essays<\/em>, he uses ‘Mechanical Hypothesis or Philosophy\u2019 (Boyle Works<\/em>, 2: 87).<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Peter Anstey writes … What is the precise relation between experimental philosophy and mechanical philosophy in the seventeenth century? In my last post I showed how neither Henry More nor Henry Stubbe were particularly clear about this. In this post […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":56,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[113],"tags":[368,226,9559],"class_list":["post-3819","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ideas","tag-boyle","tag-experimental-philosophy","tag-mechanical-philosophy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.otago.ac.nz\/emxphi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3819","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.otago.ac.nz\/emxphi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.otago.ac.nz\/emxphi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.otago.ac.nz\/emxphi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/56"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.otago.ac.nz\/emxphi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3819"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.otago.ac.nz\/emxphi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3819\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.otago.ac.nz\/emxphi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3819"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.otago.ac.nz\/emxphi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3819"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.otago.ac.nz\/emxphi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3819"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}