Creating Science: The Royal Society and the New Literatures of Science

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Margaret J. M. Ezell
Keyword(s):  
Direct Observation ◽  
Royal Society ◽  
Natural World ◽  
Scientific Instruments ◽  
Robert Hooke ◽  
Robert Boyle ◽  
Isaac Newton ◽  
Language Of Science ◽  
John Wilkins ◽  
Thomas Sprat

An overview of the founding of the Royal Society of London and early members, including Robert Hooke, Isaac Newton, John Wilkins, Robert Boyle, and Henry Oldenburg, who first published the Philosophical Transactions. In addition to the creation and improvement of scientific instruments, including microscopes and telescopes, as recorded by their historian Thomas Sprat, the members of the Royal Society wished to create a language of science free from distorting images and metaphor and to base science on empirical experiments and direct observation. Although challenged by many for promoting an atheist understanding of the natural world, members such as Robert Boyle defended science as complementary with theology. The Society promoted publications and established networks of scientific correspondence to include members outside London and on the Continent.

Η διαμόρφωση της έννοιας της δύναμης στη φυσική φιλοσοφία στην Αγγλία στα μέσα του 17ου αιώνα

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ειρήνη Γκουνταρούλη
Keyword(s):  
Royal Society ◽  
Thomas Hobbes ◽  
Robert Hooke ◽  
Robert Boyle ◽  
John Wilkins ◽  
Thomas Sprat

Στη διατριβή αυτή μελετάται η διαμόρφωση της έννοιας της δύναμης στον αγγλικό φιλοσοφικό λόγο στα μέσα του 17ου αιώνα. Εν ολίγοις, η μελέτη εστιάζει το ενδιαφέρον στη σημασία της διερεύνησης τόσο του ιστορικού και του διανοητικού πλαισίου όσο και των εννοιολογικών συνθηκών της περιόδου. Μίας περιόδου όπου στο επίκεντρο του αγγλικού φιλοσοφικού λόγου έρχεται η συζήτηση σχετικά με το ποια είναι η κατάλληλη φιλοσοφική γλώσσα για να περιγράψει τη φύση. Βασικό σημείο της μελέτης αυτής, είναι η σφοδρή αντίθεση για το ζήτημα της κατάλληλης φιλοσοφικής γλώσσας, η οποία αναπτύσσεται μεταξύ του Thomas Hobbes και του John Wilkins, πρώιμου μέλους της Βασιλικής Εταιρείας. Η μελέτη αντλεί τα μεθοδολογικά και θεωρητικά της εργαλεία από το πεδίο της εννοιολογικής ιστορίας (ή ιστορίας των εννοιών). Υπό αυτό το πρίσμα, η έννοια της δύναμης μελετάται με βάση τα σχετικά σημασιολογικά πεδία τα οποία εντοπίζονται στα γλωσσικά περικείμενα αφενός του Hobbes και αφετέρου των πέντε μελών της πρώιμης Βασιλικής Εταιρείας, δηλαδή, του Wilkins, του Robert Hooke, του Robert Boyle, του Thomas Sprat και του Joseph Glanvill. Με άλλα λόγια, στη μελέτη αυτή η έννοια της δύναμης δεν προσεγγίζεται απλώς ως μία συμπύκνωση μαθηματικών σχέσεων και φυσικών φιλοσοφικών τεχνικών, αλλά ως η συμπύκνωση ενός πλήθους ιστορικών, διανοητικών και σημασιολογικών σχέσεων οι οποίες εντοπίζονται σε συγκεκριμένα γλωσσικά περικείμενα. Η μελέτη λαμβάνει υπόψη της την πληθώρα των ιστοριογραφικών ρευμάτων οι οποίες σχετίζονται με την νευτώνεια έννοια της δύναμης που δρα από απόσταση. Ωστόσο, πηγαίνει πέρα από αυτές εστιάζοντας στις υπο-διαμόρφωση εννοιολογικές δομές οι οποίες σχετίζονται με την έννοια της νευτώνειας δύναμης και οι οποίες συγκροτούνται βάσει της συζήτησης περί της κατάλληλης φιλοσοφικής γλώσσας. Οι συγχρονικά ασαφείς εννοιολογικές δομές συμπυκνώνονται στη, αλλά και συγκροτούν τη διαμάχη οι οποία βασίστηκε και διαμορφώθηκε από τα αντιθετικά φιλοσοφικά μοντέλα αφενός του Thomas Hobbes και αφετέρου των πρώιμων μελών της Royal Society. Σε αυτό το πλαίσιο, ο Νεύτωνας δεν θεωρείται πνευματικό επίγονος της Royal Society, αλλά της φιλοσοφικής διαμάχης μεταξύ του Hobbes και των πρώιμων μελών της Royal Society. Όπως ακριβώς και η νευτώνεια έννοια της δύναμης που δρα από απόσταση δεν είναι η συσσώρευση μαθηματικών και φυσικών φιλοσοφικών λεπτομερειών της εποχής, αλλά αναγνωρίζεται ως η συμπύκνωση μίας πληθώρας εννοιολογικών, πνευματικών, θρησκευτικών, πολιτικών και φυσικών φιλοσοφικών σχέσεων, οι οποίες θέτουν ένα συγκεκριμένο ορίζονται πιθανών εμπειριών και θεωριών.

The efforts of the Aubrey correspondence group to revise John Wilkins’ Essay (1668) and their context

2001 ◽  
Vol 28 (3) ◽  
pp. 331-364 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rhodri Lewis
Keyword(s):  
Royal Society ◽  
Robert Hooke ◽  
Robert Boyle ◽  
John Ray ◽  
Intellectual Milieu ◽  
Society Committee ◽  
John Wilkins ◽  
The Individual ◽  
John Wallis ◽  
Christopher Wren

Summary In the aftermath of the publication of John Wilkins’s Essay towards a Real Character and a Philosophical Language (1668), the Royal Society established a committee to consider and develop Wilkins’s proposals, whose members included Seth Ward (1617–89), Robert Hooke (1635–1703), Robert Boyle (1627–1691), John Wallis (1616–1703), John Ray (1627–1705), Christopher Wren (1632–1723) and William Holder (1616–1698). Despite the fact that this committee never reported, work on the Essay did continue, with many of the individual members conducting a detailed correspondence, marshalled by John Aubrey (1626–1697). In addition to the members of the original Royal Society committee, this group’s participants included Francis Lodwick (1619–1694), the Somerset clergyman Andrew Paschall (c.1630–c.1696), and Thomas Pigott (1657–1686), fellow of Wadham College, Oxford. The correspondents could not, however, agree on the best means of advancing the Essay, with the principal bone of contention being the ideas of Seth Ward. Thus, their efforts were eventually fruitless. This article traces the activities of this group and the intellectual milieu in which the revision of Wilkins’s Essay took place.

Language Reform and the Lens of Simile in Experimentalist Texts

2020 ◽  
pp. 40-73
Author(s):  
Erin Webster
Keyword(s):  
Royal Society ◽  
Figurative Language ◽  
Francis Bacon ◽  
Robert Hooke ◽  
Andrew Marvell ◽  
Robert Boyle ◽  
Language Reform ◽  
Critical Understanding ◽  
Plain Style ◽  
Thomas Sprat

This chapter sheds new light on the ‘plain style’ movement associated with the experimental philosophy of England’s Royal Society by demonstrating that our critical understanding of this movement as inherently anti-figurative has been hampered by an anachronistic understanding of how early modern Europeans understood figurative language to function. Drawing upon philosophical and experimentalist writings by Francis Bacon, Thomas Sprat, Robert Boyle, and Robert Hooke, this chapter shows that, rather than being against the use of metaphor and simile outright, experimentalist writers conceived of textual ‘similitudes’ as literary analogues to the mechanical technology of the lens. As such, they, like lenses, could serve both to clarify and to distort the objects they were used to describe and therefore must be carefully chosen and applied. The chapter concludes with an exploration of how readers responded to Hooke’s use of simile in his 1665 treatise on microscopy, Micrographia, by analyzing contemporaneous critiques of his work by Andrew Marvell, Samuel Butler, and Margaret Cavendish that target his literary style in addition—and relation—to his optical science.

The Curious Eye

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Erin Webster
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Human Vision ◽  
Francis Bacon ◽  
Robert Hooke ◽  
Robert Boyle ◽  
Isaac Newton ◽  
Johannes Kepler ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Historical Moment

The Curious Eye explores early modern debates over two related questions: what are the limits of human vision, and to what extent can these limits be overcome by technological enhancement? Today, in our everyday lives we rely on optical technology to provide us with information about visually remote spaces even as we question the efficacy and ethics of such pursuits. But the debates surrounding the subject of technologically mediated vision have their roots in a much older literary tradition in which the ability to see beyond the limits of natural human vision is associated with philosophical and spiritual insight as well as social and political control. The Curious Eye provides insight into the subject of optically mediated vision by returning to the literature of the seventeenth century, the historical moment in which human visual capacity in the West was first extended through the application of optical technologies to the eye. Bringing imaginative literary works by Francis Bacon, John Milton, Margaret Cavendish, and Aphra Behn together with optical and philosophical treatises by Johannes Kepler, René Descartes, Robert Hooke, Robert Boyle, and Isaac Newton, The Curious Eye explores the social and intellectual impact of the new optical technologies of the seventeenth century on its literature. At the same time, it demonstrates that social, political, and literary concerns are not peripheral to the optical science of the period but rather an integral part of it, the legacy of which we continue to experience.

scholarly journals The Saline Chymistry of Color in Seventeenth-Century English Natural History

2015 ◽  
Vol 20 (4-6) ◽  
pp. 562-588 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anna Marie Roos
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Natural History ◽  
Natural World ◽  
Analytical Tool ◽  
Robert Hooke ◽  
Robert Boyle ◽  
Seminal Work ◽  
Color Changes ◽  
Natural Philosophers

Before Newton’s seminal work on the spectrum, seventeenth-century English natural philosophers such as Robert Boyle, Robert Hooke, Nehemiah Grew and Robert Plot attributed the phenomenon of color in the natural world to salts and saline chymistry. They rejected Aristotelian ideas that color was related to the object’s hot and cold qualities, positing instead that saline principles governed color and color changes in flora, fauna and minerals. In our study, we also characterize to what extent chymistry was a basic analytical tool for seventeenth-century English natural historians.


The Libraries of Newton, Hooke and Boyle

1966 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
pp. 42-55 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Scientific Literature ◽  
Scientific Theories ◽  
Robert Hooke ◽  
Sir Isaac Newton ◽  
Robert Boyle ◽  
Isaac Newton ◽  
The Past ◽  
The World ◽  
History Of

The demand and search for the scientific literature of the past has grown enormously in the last twenty years. In an age as conscious as ours of the significance of science to mankind, some scientists naturally turned their thoughts to the origins of science as we know it, how scientific theories grew and how discoveries were made. Both institutions and individual scientists partake in these interests and form collections of books necessary for their study. How did their predecessors fare in this respect? They, of course, formed their libraries at a time when books were easy to find—and cheap. But what did they select for their particular reading? For example, what did the libraries of the three greatest scientists of the seventeenth century, Sir Isaac Newton, Robert Hooke and Robert Boyle, look like? Fortunately in the case of Newton, the history of his books is now fairly clear, thanks to the devoted labours of Colonel R . de Villamil (i), but it is a sad reflection on our attitude to our great intellectual leaders that this library o f the greatest English scientist, whose work changed the world for hundreds of years, was not taken care of, was, in fact, forgotten and at times entirely neglected.

William, Viscount Brouncker, P. R. S. (1620-1684)

1960 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
pp. 147-157 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Early Life ◽  
Royal Society ◽  
Robert Boyle ◽  
Charles I ◽  
John Wilkins ◽  
John Wallis ◽  
At Home

The lack of a definitive study of the life of Lord Brouncker, a spiteful remark of Pepys so often quoted against him (1), and possible confusion with his less reputable brother Henry (2), all combine to prompt an intriguing question. Why was he chosen as the first President of the Royal Society rather than John Wilkins, John Wallis, Robert Boyle or Sir Robert Moray? The wisdom of the choice was proved by the devoted and able service he gave to that high office during the infant years of the Society. William, second Viscount Brouncker of Castle Lyons, in the Irish peerage, was the elder son of Sir William Brouncker, gentleman of the privy chamber to Charles I, and vice-chamberlain to his son, Charles, Prince of Wales. ‘This loyal knight’ Wood records in his Athena Oxonienses ‘who was the son of Sir Henry Bruncker, President of Mounster in Ireland , by Anne, his wife, sister of Henry, Lord Morley, was created Viscount of Castle Lyon in the said kingdom 12 September 1645, and dying in Wadham College, in the middle of November following, was buried on the 20th of the said month.’ We know little of Brouncker’s early life, even the date of his birth, 1620, is conjectural. He was sent to Oxford at the age of sixteen, where he quickly made himself proficient in several languages. He was probably intended to follow the profession of medicine, as in 1647 he was awarded the degree of Doctor of Physick at Oxford, but his inclination led him to the study of mathematics, for which he evidently had a flair. He soon began to correspond with distinguished mathematicians, notably John Wallis, and it was not long before his reputation as a mathematician was recognized both at home and abroad.

scholarly journals As pesquisas de Newton sobre a luz: Uma visão histórica

2015 ◽  
Vol 37 (4) ◽  
pp. 4202-1-4202-32
Author(s):  
Roberto de Andrade Martins ◽  
Cibelle Celestino Silva
Keyword(s):  
Rene Descartes ◽  
Robert Hooke ◽  
Robert Boyle ◽  
Isaac Newton ◽  
Christiaan Huygens ◽  
René Descartes

Este artigo apresenta uma visão histórica geral sobre o desenvolvimento dos trabalhos de Isaac Newton a respeito da óptica, desde suas primeiras investigações em 1664 até o final de sua vida, quando publicou as várias edições de seu livro Opticks. Para permitir uma compreensão adequada do trabalho de Newton, são também apresentadas as contribuições de outros autores importantes do Século XVII, especialmente René Descartes, Walter Charleton, Robert Boyle, Robert Hooke e Christiaan Huygens. A análise dos trabalhos inéditos e publicados de Newton permite notar que ele jamais chegou a uma teoria definitiva a respeito da luz e das cores, adotando diversas hipóteses diferentes e mutuamente inconsistentes. O estudo aqui apresentado pode contribuir para complementar as visões simplificadas sobre a história da óptica e das contribuições de Newton sobre esse tema, bem como corrigir diversos equívocos presentes em obras didáticas e de divulgação científica sobre o assunto.

Pioneers in Optics: Robert Hooke

2013 ◽  
Vol 21 (4) ◽  
pp. 48-50
Author(s):  
Michael W. Davidson
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Royal Society ◽  
Early Education ◽  
Active Role ◽  
Robert Hooke ◽  
Isle Of Wight ◽  
Robert Boyle ◽  
Oxford University ◽  
Scientific Equipment ◽  
Entire Society

Robert Hooke was a brilliant British experimental and theoretical scientist who lived and worked in London during the seventeenth century. As a child, Hooke suffered from a devastating case of smallpox that left him physically and emotionally scarred for the rest of his life. He was born the son of a minister on July 18, 1635, at Freshwater, on the Isle of Wight. Hooke's father, John Hooke, took an active role in Robert's early education until he entered the Westminster School at the age of thirteen following his father's suicide. After graduating Westminster in 1648, Hooke first conducted an apprenticeship with artist Sir Peter Lely and then entered Oxford University where he met and studied under some of the greatest scientists in England. Hooke eventually became a paid assistant for Robert Boyle and helped develop a working air pump. He remained in Boyle's laboratory until 1662 when he was made curator of experiments for the Royal Society of London, a job that entailed demonstration of scientific equipment and experimental procedures during weekly meetings of the entire society.

The debt of engineering to Fellows of the Royal Society

1961 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
pp. 136-140
Keyword(s):  
Royal Society ◽  
The Moon ◽  
Human Race ◽  
Robert Hooke ◽  
Business Interests ◽  
Jules Verne ◽  
Economic Statistics ◽  
Charles Ii ◽  
John Wilkins ◽  
Hooke’S Joint

King Charles II, the founder and patron of the Royal Society, in its second charter of 1663, bade the Fellows apply their studies ‘to the advantage of the human race’. Encouraged by the presence of Moray and Bruce, both with industrial and business interests, and of William Petty, the founder of economic statistics, Charles was no doubt hoping for some practical results from their work. When he teased them ‘for spending time in weighing only air,’ he may well have had a material motive in his mind. Invention and Experiment In their early meetings they often discussed industrial problems, and they had committees on Mechanical Inventions and on Histories of Trade. In Robert Hooke their Curator of Experiments, they had one of the most prolific investigators and inventors of all time, remembered today as the founder of meteorology, for Hooke’s Law, for his universal or Hooke’s joint, the first dividing engine, the spiral gear, and the balance spring of watches. The interest of the Fellows in astronomy was due in no small part to their concern with the problems of navigation. John Wilkins, the Jules Verne of his generation, who presided at the founding meeting, wrote about the possibility of journeys to the moon and in his Mathematical Magick he discussed the flying Chariot’ and ‘an Ark for submarine Navigations’. So there was justification for the King’s optimism.

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