Robert Boyle’s Corpuscular Chemistry: Atomism before Its Time

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alan Chalmers
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Recent Work ◽  
Thirteenth Century ◽  
New World ◽  
World View ◽  
Traditional View ◽  
World Views ◽  
Experimental Practice ◽  
Modern Chemistry ◽  
Matter Theory

In her important and pioneering work on Robert Boyle’s contributions to chemistry Marie Boas Hall (Boas 1958; and Hall 1965, 81–93) portrayed Boyle’s advances as being tied up with and facilitated by his adoption of the new world view, the mechanical or corpuscular philosophy, as opposed to Aristotelian or Paracelsian philosophies or world views. In recent decades such a reading has been challenged. Historians of chemistry such as Frederic L. Holmes (1989), Ursula Klein (1994, 1995, 1996) and Mi Gyung Kim (2003) have portrayed modern chemistry as emerging in the seventeenth century by way of a path closely tied to technological and experimental practice and relatively independent of overarching philosophies or world views. Such a perspective raises questions about how productive Boyle’s attempts to wed chemistry and the mechanical philosopher were as far as the emergence of modern chemistry is concerned. This is the issue I will investigate. In recent work on Boyle’s chemistry William Newman (2006) has also taken issue with what he calls the “traditional accounts,” especially that of Hall. Newman’s quarrel with the traditional accounts is the extent to which they read Boyle’s corpuscular chemistry as emerging out of the atomism of Democritus and Lucretius and its reincarnations in the hands of early mechanical philosophers such as Descartes and Gassendi, neglecting a corpuscular tradition that has its origins in Aristotle’s Meteorology. In a range of detailed and pioneering studies Newman (1991, 1996, 2001, 2006) has documented the elaboration of the latter tradition in the works of the thirteenth century author known as Geber and its passage to Boyle, especially via Daniel Sennert, a Wittenburg professor of medicine in the early seventeenth century. While Newman’s work has led to a substantial and significant re-evaluation of the sources of Boyle’s corpuscular chemistry there is a sense in which he does not break from the “traditional” view insofar as he reads the revolutionary aspects of Boyle’s chemistry in terms of a change from an Aristotelian to a mechanical matter theory.

Religion, Science, and Environment

2003 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
pp. 67-88
Author(s):  
Michael T. Seigel
Keyword(s):  
New World ◽  
World View ◽  
Environmental Movement ◽  
Science And Religion ◽  
Social Structures ◽  
Symbiotic Relationship ◽  
Christian Tradition ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
World Views ◽  
The Real

Much theological discussion of ecology has focussed on responding to criticism such as that of Lynn White, but there are aspects of Christian tradition that need more attention: the loss of a sense of symbiotic relationship between humanity and nature, and the belief that human beings can effectively and harmlessly manipulate nature to their own ends. The viewpoint of White and many other ecological thinkers that our behaviour derives from our world-views and religiosity has set substantial portions of the environmental movement in search of a new world-view and a new religiosity. If, however, our world-views and religiosity derive, even in part, from our social structures and therefore ultimately from our behaviour, then we must also focus on changing these. The question of science then is not only whether it is sufficiently holistic but also whether it can contribute to determining appropriate behaviours and social structures. Dialogue between science and religion has already come a long way in terms of developing new world-views. It is necessary now that they work together to guide and motivate the real decisionmaking processes in politics, economics, and so forth.

Qualities, Powers, and Bare Powers in Locke

2021 ◽  
pp. 186-205
Author(s):  
Lisa Downing
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Recent Work ◽  
Secondary Qualities ◽  
New Science ◽  
Primary Qualities ◽  
Matter Theory

Lisa Downing focuses on the important issue of the metaphysics of Locke’s primary–secondary qualities distinction. In recent years this has returned as a topic of scholarly contention. Downing is concerned by the anti-realist trends in recent work on the metaphysics of Locke primary–secondary qualities distinction, and she is keen to defend the claims that Locke was ‘putting forward a kind of realism about secondary qualities’ and that his realism does not readily appear to be a reductive form of realism. Downing begins with the traditional claim that Locke’s distinction was driven by his understanding of matter theory within the new science, like many others in the seventeenth century. From this perspective, she criticizes recent work on the nature and priority of primary qualities, which fail to root the primary in a metaphysical base or connect them to the metaphysical base in the wrong way. Next, she turns toward explaining her own understanding of the subordinate status of the secondary qualities, which brings Downing to Locke’s claim that secondary qualities are ‘mere powers’ and what this meant metaphysically to him.

The Scientific Revolution Really Occurred

2007 ◽  
Vol 15 (4) ◽  
pp. 459-471 ◽  
Author(s):  
WILLIAM R. SHEA
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Scientific Revolution ◽  
New World ◽  
World View ◽  
Proper Understanding ◽  
Isaac Newton ◽  
Modern Age ◽  
Scholastic Tradition

The importance of the Scientific Revolution of the seventeenth century has been queried in recent years and this paper attempts to show why the notion is still essential to a proper understanding of the twin advance in scientific conceptualization and factual discovery that began in the sixteenth century and led through such figures as Galileo to the new world view of Isaac Newton. The significance of the scholastic tradition, hermeticism and alchemy is not denied, but the major breakthrough that catapulted Europe into the modern age was the outcome of new conceptual tools and a fresh outlook on nature.

A Scientific World-View of Nature and Environmental Problem with a Special Concentration on Seyyed Hossein Nasr’s Understanding of Environmental Sustainability (Perspektif Sains terhadap Krisis Alam dan Persekitaran: Pemikiran Seyyed Hossein Nasr tentan)

2018 ◽  
Vol 15 (2) ◽  
pp. 312-328
Author(s):  
Md. Abu Sayem
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Sustainability ◽  
World View ◽  
Modern Society ◽  
Ecological Crisis ◽  
Environmental Crisis ◽  
World Views ◽  
Renaissance Humanism ◽  
Spiritual World ◽  
Scientific World ◽  
European Renaissance

The present paper attempts to expose how the scientific world-view of nature contributes to the present environmental crisis. Alongside this, it relates European Renaissance, humanism, secularism, the scientific and industrial revolutions, modern philosophy, scientism, technology-based modern life, consumerism-based modern society, etc. with current environmental problems. By focusing on Nasr’s traditional understanding of nature, the paper explores how materialistic and mechanistic world-views are deeply connected with the present ecological crisis. It also offers a critical analysis of Nasr’s spiritual and religious world-view of nature and examines its relevance. In doing so, it aims to highlight some demerits of the present world-view, and to call to reform current perceptions of nature by revitalizing traditional wisdom in order to protect the environment from further degradation. Thus, the paper is scholarly addition to the ongoing discourse on the issue of religions and the environment. Keywords: Eco-theology, Environmental Degradation, Materialistic and Mechanistic Views of Nature, Scientism, Spiritual Crisis of Modern humans, Religious and Spiritual World-Views.   Abstrak Kertas kajian ini menerangkan bagaimana pandangan saintifik telah menyumbang kepada krisis alam sekitar semasa. Disamping itu, kertas ini akan menhubungkaitkan Gerakan Revolusi Humanisma di Eropah, sekularisme, revolusi  sains dan perindustrian, falsafah moden, saintisme, kehidupan moden yang berasaskan teknologi, masyarakat moden yang berasaskan consumerisme, etc. dengan krisis alam sekitar yang berlaku dewasa ini.  Dengan memahami pandangan Nasr terhadap alam sekitar, kertas ini akan merungkai bagaimana pandangan materialistik (kebendaan) dan mekanistik mempengaruhi krisis ekologi masa kini. Ia juga akan menganalisa pandangan spiritual dan agama Nasr terhadap alam sekitar secara kritikal dan akan menilai sejauh mana kesesuaiannya. Dengan sedemikian dapat menyedarkan manusia tentang kecacatan pandangan semasa, yang kemudiannya akan membawa kepada pembaharuan persepsi mereka terhadap alam sekitar dengan cara menghidupkan semula nilai-nilai tradisional demi mengelakkan kemerosotan alam sekitar. Kertas ini akan memuatkan idea-idea para cendiakawan dalam membincangkan isu  berkaitan agama dan alam sekitar. Kata Kunci: Eko-Teologi, Kemerosotan Alam Sekitar, Pandangan Materialistik dan Makanistik terhadap Alam, Saintisme, Krisis Spiritual Manusia Moden, Perspektif Spiritual dan Agama.

‘A Welsh Lancashire’? Monmouthshire Catholics in the Eighteenth Century

1979 ◽  
Vol 15 (2) ◽  
pp. 176-188 ◽  
Author(s):  
Philip Jenkins
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Recent Work ◽  
Civil Wars ◽  
The West ◽  
The North ◽  
South Wales ◽  
Jesuit Mission ◽  
Charles Ii ◽  
Popish Plot

In the seventeenth century, one of the Catholic strongholds of Britain had lain on the southern Welsh borders, in those areas of north Monmouthshire and southern Herefordshire dependant on the Marquis of Worcester at Raglan, and looking to the Jesuit mission at Cwm. Abergavenny and Monmouth had been largely Catholic towns, while the north Monmouthshire countryside still merited the attention of fifteen priests in the 1670s—after the Civil Wars, and the damaging conversion to Protestantism of the heir of Raglan in 1667. Conspicuous Catholic strength caused fear, and the ‘Popish Plot’ was the excuse for a uniquely violent reaction, in which the Jesuit mission was all but destroyed. What happened after that is less clear. In 1780, Berington wrote that ‘In many [counties], particularly in the west, in south Wales, and some of the Midland counties, there is scarcely a Catholic to be found’. Modern histories tend to reflect this, perhaps because of available evidence. The archives of the Western Vicariate were destroyed in a riot in Bath in 1780, and a recent work like J. H. Aveling's The Handle and the Axe relies heavily on sources and examples from the north of England. This attitude is epitomised by Bossy's remark on the distribution of priests in 1773: ‘In Wales, the mission had collapsed’. However, the question of Catholic survival in eighteenth-century Wales is important. In earlier assessments of Catholic strength (by landholding, or number of recusants gaoled as a proportion of population) Monmouthshire had achieved the rare feat of exceeding the zeal of Lancashire, and Herefordshire was not far behind. If this simply ceased to exist, there was an almost incredible success for the ‘short, sharp’ persecution under Charles II. If, however, the area remained a Catholic fortress, then recent historians of recusancy have unjustifiably neglected it.

The Historian and the Art Historian, III: Recent Work on the Seventeenth Century

1990 ◽  
Vol 20 (3) ◽  
pp. 437
Author(s):  
Theodore K. Rabb ◽  
Gridley McKim-Smith ◽  
Greta Andersen-Bergdol ◽  
Richard Newman ◽  
Erik Larsen ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Recent Work

Apostolic Colleges of the Propagation of the Faith-Old And New World Background

1962 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
pp. 50-58
Author(s):  
Kieran McCarty
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
New World ◽  
Temporal Order ◽  
Human Endeavor ◽  
History Of ◽  
Spiritual Conquest

In the history of Spain's spiritual conquest of the New World, a definite cycle of enthusiasm may be observed. In the seventeenth century, for example, there was a noticeable falling off of Spanish missionary effort in the direction of the tribes yet to be converted. It is interesting to speculate on the causes of this phenomenon. An obvious cause, and certainly a contributing one, lies in the very nature of man. Human endeavor in the temporal order tends now to wax, now to wane in enthusiasm, and since the mission effort in question was human as well as divine, this cycle would tend to appear here as well. Around midcentury this problem of lessening enthusiasm became acute.

Production, Communication, and Comprehension of Knowledge of the New World: Ethnographic Descriptions in Caspar Barlaeus’ Rerum per Octennium

2012 ◽  
Vol 2 (3) ◽  
pp. 223-246
Author(s):  
Britt Dams
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
New World ◽  
Classical Antiquity ◽  
Careful Selection ◽  
The Bible ◽  
New Knowledge ◽  
Trading Network ◽  
Shed Light ◽  
Dutch Brazil

This article deals with the textual legacy of Dutch Brazil, in particular the ethnographic descriptions in one of the most popular works about the colony: Barlaeus’ Rerum per Octennium in Brasilia et alibi nuper gestarum. Barlaeus never set foot in Brazil, but was an important Dutch intellectual authority in the seventeenth century. To compose the Rerum per Octennium, he relied on a wide variety of available sources, not only firsthand observations, but also classical, biblical and other contemporary sources. From these, he made a careful selection to produce his descriptions. Recent research shows that the Dutch participated in networks of knowledge and imagination as well as in a more familiar early modern trading network. This article reveals that Barlaeus’ descriptions not only circulated as knowledge, but also produced new knowledge. The Rerum soon became one of the standard works about the colony due to the importance of its author and its composition. Furthermore, the article discusses the rhetorical techniques used in some selected descriptions in order to shed light upon the strategies Barlaeus used in his discourse on the strange reality of the New World. For example, his ethnographic descriptions employed parallel customs or events from the classical Antiquity or the Bible. In these comparisons he displays both his intellectual capacities and shows his desire to comprehend this exotic reality.

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