Robert Boyle's 'Designe about Natural History'

2008 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 83-126 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Hunter ◽  
Peter Anstey
Keyword(s):  
Natural History ◽  
Human Blood ◽  
Natural Philosophy ◽  
History Of ◽  
Clear Statement

AbstractThis paper provides an analysis of Robert Boyle's most detailed discussion of the Baconian method of natural history. In a long letter to Henry Oldenburg dated 13 June 1666 and in ancillary manuscript material, Boyle spells out the method or 'Designe' by which he believes experimental programs in natural philosophy should be written up. The 'Designe' is enormously important in giving a clear statement of the precise contours of Boyle's Baconian methodology and providing a key to understanding the rationale, composition and format for many of his published histories. Works such as New Experiments and Considerations Touching Cold, Memoirs for the Natural History of Human Blood and even his more speculative writings such as An Introduction to the History of Particular Qualities are best understood in terms of Boyle's overall method as articulated in his “Designe about Natural History”.

Locke, Boyle and Peter Stahl

1995 ◽  
Vol 49 (2) ◽  
pp. 185-192 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Natural History ◽  
Human Blood ◽  
John Locke ◽  
Practical Work ◽  
Robert Hooke ◽  
Robert Boyle ◽  
History Of

John Locke and Robert Boyle first met at some time before May 1660 but do not seem to have become closely acquainted until 1664 when they were both in Oxford. 1 Locke’s notebooks for 1664-67 contain many short entries ending ‘Mr.Boyle’, which appear to be details that Locke received from Boyle personally. 2 In his work, Boyle relied on various assistants, quite apart from craftsmen like glass-blowers and blacksmiths, who ranged from his amanuensis, needed because of his poor sight, and his servants who watched experiments through the night, to skilled collaborators like Robert Hooke. 3 In addition, Boyle was in touch with independent workers, notably Richard Lower whose name appears in Locke’s notebooks some time before Boyle’s; 4 and Dewhurst suggested that Locke was also a member of this group. 5 It is certainly true that Locke provided Boyle with barometric and meteorological readings about this time and that 21 of his headings for the ‘chymicall Analysis’ of blood are related to Boyle’s 46 headings in his Memoirs for the Natural History of Human Blood (1683/4). 6 But it is going too far to conclude from Locke’s practical notes on blood that he was then acting as Boyle’s assistant. Those notes come from Bodleian MS. Locke f.25. What they describe are not ‘experiments’ done by Locke, Boyle or anyone else. They are a record of the practical work Locke did when he attended a course of lectures in 1666 which were given by Peter Stahl, the German chemist brought by Boyle to Oxford in 1659.

scholarly journals On a convenient terminology for the various stages of the malaria parasite

1902 ◽  
Vol 70 (459-466) ◽  
pp. 74-79
Keyword(s):  
Life History ◽  
Natural History ◽  
Human Blood ◽  
Malaria Parasite ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
The Body ◽  
History Museum ◽  
General Morphology ◽  
History Of ◽  
Reproductive Phases

I have found it necessary in labelling a series of models of the malaria parasite in the Central Hall of the Natural History Museum to use as simple and clear a terminology as possible. I think that this terminology will be found useful by others who are perplexed by such terms as “sporozoites,” “blasts,” “ookinetes,” “schizonts,” “amphionts,” and “sporonts”—terms which have their place in schemes dealing with the general morphology and life-history of the group Sporozoa, but are not, as experience shows, well suited for immediate use in describing and referring to the stages of the malaria parasite. It is necessary to treat the malaria parasite from the point of view of malaria; that is to say, to consider its significant phases to be those which it passes in the human blood. In reality its mature condition and most important motile, as well as its most prolific reproductive, phases are passed in the body of the mosquito.

Self-Scrutiny and the Study of Nature: Robert Hooke's Diary as Natural History

1996 ◽  
Vol 35 (3) ◽  
pp. 311-342 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lotte Mulligan
Keyword(s):  
Natural History ◽  
Royal Society ◽  
Natural Philosophy ◽  
Daily Life ◽  
Intellectual Life ◽  
History Of ◽  
After Hours ◽  
College Now ◽  
City Of London ◽  
The City

Robert Hooke's intellectual life was steadfastly dedicated to the pursuit of natural philosophy and the formulation of an appropriate method for studying nature, His daily life, however, was seemingly fragmented—an energetic rush in and around the city of London, with him acting now as curator (and later secretary) of the Royal Society, now as Cutlerian Lecturer in the History of Nature and Art, now as Geometry Professor at Gresham College, now as architect and surveyor of postfire London, and forever as a member of a number of intersecting social, intellectual, and professional circles that made up London's coffeehouse culture. Such a range of activities was perhaps wider than that of many of his contemporaries, though other diarists, most notably Samuel Pepys, recorded similarly crammed lives. Yet despite the apparently unsystematic nature of his daily round he was, also like Pepys, a methodical man who hated to waste time, and for long periods he kept a diary that helped him account for how he spent it.I argue here that his diary keeping was an integral part of his scientific vision reflecting the epistemological and methodological practices that guided him as a student of nature. The diary should be read, I propose, not as an “after-hours” incidental activity removed from his professional and intellectual life; both its form and its content suggest that he chose to record a self that was as subject to scientific scrutiny as the rest of nature and that he thought that such a record could be applied to producing, in the end, a fully objective “history” with himself as the datum.

Francis Bacon and the Aristotelian Tradition on the Nature of Sound

2020 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 9-25
Author(s):  
Claudia Dumitru ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Natural History ◽  
Middle Ages ◽  
Natural Philosophy ◽  
Francis Bacon ◽  
De Anima ◽  
Local Motion ◽  
Efficient Cause ◽  
History Of ◽  
Aristotelian Tradition

Centuries II and III of Francis Bacon’s posthumous natural history Sylva Sylvarum are largely dedicated to sound. This paper claims that Bacon’s investigation on this topic is fruitfully read against the background of the Aristotelian theory of sound, as presented in De anima commentaries. I argue that Bacon agreed with the general lines of this tradition in a crucial aspect: he rejected the reduction of sound to local motion. Many of the experimental instances and more theoretical remarks from his natural history of sound can be elucidated against this wider concern of distinguishing sound from motion, a theme that had been a staple of Aristotelian discussions of sound and hearing since the Middle Ages. Bacon admits that local motion is part of the efficient cause of sound, but he denies that it is its form, which means that sound cannot be reduced to a type of local motion. This position places him outside subsequent developments in natural philosophy in the seventeenth century.

scholarly journals Jan Swammerdam's frogs

2012 ◽  
Vol 66 (4) ◽  
pp. 373-392 ◽  
Author(s):  
Charlotte Sleigh
Keyword(s):  
Natural History ◽  
Natural Philosophy ◽  
Muscular Activity ◽  
Great Work ◽  
Rhetorical Structure ◽  
Insect Metamorphosis ◽  
History Of

Having discussed insect metamorphosis at length, Jan Swammerdam's Bybel der Natuure (1679/1737) reached its climax with a substantial description of the generation and muscular activity of frogs. This paper explores the rhetorical role of frogs in Swammerdam's ‘great work’, showing how they were the Archimedean point from which he aimed to reorder all of creation—from insects to humans—within one glorious, God-ordained natural history and philosophy. Swammerdam linked insects to frogs through a demonstration that all underwent epigenesis; and frogs were then linked to humans through a demonstration of their identical muscular activity. The success of Swammerdam's strategy required a theological reconstruction of the frog, traditionally an ungodly creature, such that trustworthy knowledge could be obtained from its body. Perhaps surprisingly, this act of theological cleansing is shown to be somewhat prefigured in the distinctly non-experimental natural history of Edward Topsell (1608). The paper also examines Swammerdam's interactions with the mystic Antoinette Bourignon, and his challenges in reconciling a spirituality of meletetics with a material epistemology in natural philosophy. Differences are revealed between the natural analogies given by Swammerdam in his published and unpublished writings, undermining to a certain extent the triumphal insect–frog–human rhetorical structure of the Bybel .

Tensions in the Concept of Geology: Natural History or Natural Philosophy?

1982 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 7-13 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rachel Laudan
Keyword(s):  
Natural History ◽  
Common Sense ◽  
Natural Philosophy ◽  
General Term ◽  
Processes Of Change ◽  
Plate Tectonic ◽  
New Techniques ◽  
Early 19Th Century ◽  
The Earth ◽  
History Of

Under the general term "geology" there exist two very distinct concepts of the aim and subject matter of the discipline. One concept is that geology is part of natural history and thus is primarily concerned with the reconstruction of the history of the earth. The other concept is that geology is part of natural philosophy and thus is primarily concerned with understanding the processes of change on the earth. Although both concepts can be found at most periods in the development of geology, the relative emphasis has swung decisively back and forth at different times, for example, in the Lyellian period in the early 19th century, and in the plate tectonic revolution. This is at odds with our common sense picture of disciplinary development. Two important mechanisms that trigger these swings are the discovery of new techniques and the adoption of new methodological positions.

How is the moral stance related to the intentional stance and group thinking?

2020 ◽  
Vol 43 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hannes Rakoczy
Keyword(s):  
Natural History ◽  
Social Cognitive ◽  
Intentional Stance ◽  
Cognitive Capacities ◽  
Shared Intentionality ◽  
History Of ◽  
Group Thinking ◽  
Moral Stance

Abstract The natural history of our moral stance told here in this commentary reveals the close nexus of morality and basic social-cognitive capacities. Big mysteries about morality thus transform into smaller and more manageable ones. Here, I raise questions regarding the conceptual, ontogenetic, and evolutionary relations of the moral stance to the intentional and group stances and to shared intentionality.

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