The Experimental Philosophy of Robert Boyle (1626-91)

1932 ◽  
Vol 41 (6) ◽  
pp. 594 ◽  
Author(s):  
Philip Paul Wiener
Keyword(s):  
Experimental Philosophy ◽  
Robert Boyle

scholarly journals An accompt of some books. - I. Of the useiulness of experimental Natural Philosophy, the second Tome; by the Honourable Robert Boyle Esq; Fellow of the R. Society. Oxford 1671. in 4°., II. Enchiridion metaphysicum, five de rebus incorporeis dissertatio, per H. M. Cantabrigiensem, Londini 1671. in 4°., III. Diophanti alexandrini arithmeticorum libri sex, & de numeris multanglis liber unus; cum commentariis C. G. Bacheti, & observationibus D. P. de Fermat Senatoris Tholosani: Cui accessie Doctrinæ Ana

1671 ◽  
Vol 6 (72) ◽  
pp. 2179-2190
Keyword(s):  
Experimental Philosophy ◽  
Natural Philosophy ◽  
Robert Boyle

An accompt of some books. - I. Of the useiulness of experimental naiural philosophy, the second Tome; by the Honourable Robert Boyle Esq; Fellow of the R. Society. Oxford 1671. in 4°., II. Enchiridion metaphysicum, sive de rebus incorporeis dissertatio, per H. M. Cantabrigiensem, Londini 1671. in 4°., III. Diophanti alexandrini arithmeticorum libri sex, & de numeris multanglis liber unus; cum commentariis C. G. Bacheti, & observationibus D. P. de Fermat Senatoris Tholosani: Cui accessie doctrinæ analyticæ inventum novum: Tolosæ, 1670. in Folio., IV. Rosetum geometricum, cum censura brevi doctrinœ wallisianæ de motu, auth. Thoma Hobbes Malmesburiensi. Londini apud guil. crook, ad sign. draconis viridis without Templebar. 1671. in 4°., V. The prodromus of a dissertation concerning a solid contained in a solid, by Nicolaus Streno. English't out of Latin. London 1671. by Moses Pitt in Litle Britain, in 8°. This Illustrious Author, in pursuance of his design, begun in the First Tome of this Work (published many years since) which is to manifest, that Experimental Philosophy is conducive to improve the Understanding and to increase the Power of Man, proceeds in the Second Tome to deliver Six very Instructive and Useful Essays .

The Testimony of Nature: Boyle, Hooke and Experimental Philosophy

1971 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 72-81 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert H. Kargon
Keyword(s):  
Royal Society ◽  
Experimental Philosophy ◽  
Scientific Organization ◽  
The Body ◽  
Francis Bacon ◽  
Robert Hooke ◽  
Robert Boyle ◽  
Full Study ◽  
History Of ◽  
The One

“The Office of the sense shall be the only judge of the experiment, and … the experiment itself shall judge of the thing.”Francis Bacon, The Great InstaurationThe first history of the Royal Society of London, published in 1667, and the most recent full study of that scientific organization published three centuries later, agree on one important point: that Sir Francis Bacon was the intellectual progenitor of the body, that in the denigrating words of a contemporary critic the Society was “Bacon-faced.” The author of the former, Thomas Sprat, termed Bacon the “one great Man, who had the true Imagination of the whole extent of this Enterprise,” and in “whose Books there are every where scattered the best arguments that can be produced for the defence of Experimental Philosophy.” The author of the latter, Margery Purver, agrees that “Bacon was the great formative influence on the Society's concept of science.”Yet it must be conceded at once that Bacon's legacy was ambiguous. While the early Royal Society indeed was Bacon-faced, “it saw many faces of Bacon.” The period after the founding of the Society, the 1660's and 1670's, was one of contending philosophies and of a continuing effort to fashion clearer notions of what an experimental philosophy was to be like and what role experience was to play in scientific argument. Two of the more important and influential members of the Society who were actively engaged in this pursuit were Robert Boyle and Robert Hooke; these men were, and saw themselves, as disciples of the Lord Chancellor. It is my intention here to illustrate the differing approaches to the Baconian legacy of Boyle and of Hooke by focusing attention upon an interesting analogy, used by both, which may aid us in interpreting the conception of experiment in the works of these two founders of the experimental philosophy.

scholarly journals To the truly noble philosopher, Robert Boyle esq; brother to the Right Honourable the Earl of Burlington, &c

1670 ◽  
Vol 5 (57) ◽  
pp. 1143-1146
Keyword(s):  
Experimental Philosophy ◽  
Robert Boyle ◽  
The Right

Sir, I Cannot forbear any longer to address one of the Volumes of these Transactions to You, to whom I most willingly profess I am sincerely devoted, and who is known to have obliged the learned World with so many uncommon Discoveries in Nature, and so solidly maintain’d the Power and Vsefulness of Experimental Philosophy .

Shifting Concepts

2020 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Experimental Philosophy ◽  
Central Area ◽  
Linguistic Meaning ◽  
Human Cognition ◽  
Important Work ◽  
Linguistic Communication ◽  
New Perspective ◽  
Semantic Properties ◽  
Conceptual Variation

Concepts stand at the centre of human cognition. We use concepts in categorizing objects and events in the world, in reasoning and action, and in social interaction. It is therefore not surprising that the study of concepts constitutes a central area of research in philosophy and psychology. Since the 1970s, psychologists have carried out intriguing experiments testing the role of concepts in categorizing and reasoning, and have found a great deal of variation in categorization behaviour across individuals and cultures. During the same period, philosophers of language and mind did important work on the semantic properties of concepts, and on how concepts are related to linguistic meaning and linguistic communication. An important motivation behind this was the idea that concepts must be shared, across individuals and cultures. However, there was little interaction between these two research programs until recently. With the dawn of experimental philosophy, the proposal that the experimental data from psychology lacks relevance to semantics is increasingly difficult to defend. Moreover, in the last decade, philosophers have approached questions about the tension between conceptual variation and shared concepts in communication from a new perspective: that of ameliorating concepts for theoretical or for social and political purposes. The volume brings together leading psychologists and philosophers working on concepts who come from these different research traditions.

Robert Boyle, Christian Virtuoso

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Victor Nuovo
Keyword(s):  
Natural Philosophy ◽  
Experimental Methods ◽  
Intellectual Life ◽  
Experimental Practice ◽  
Robert Boyle

Boyle gave the vocation of a Christian virtuoso its name and exemplified its character in his life. Following Bacon, he affirmed the priority of natural philosophy, and, like Bacon, he prescribed that it be practiced through experimental methods and that it found its explanations either directly upon perceived causes or upon causal hypotheses inferred from experimental practice or trials of nature, chief among them the mechanical or ‘atomicall’ philosophy. In his book The Christian Virtuoso, he prescribed that the study of nature was complemented and completed by the study of Holy Scripture, and he imagined a form of intellectual life in which the scope of natural reason was enlarged by revelation, which in turn was confirmed through trials or experiments of faith.

Francis Bacon and the Origins of Christian Virtuosity

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Victor Nuovo
Keyword(s):  
Empirical Study ◽  
Royal Society ◽  
Natural Philosophy ◽  
Francis Bacon ◽  
Human Society ◽  
Divine Revelation ◽  
Intellectual Life ◽  
Natural Philosopher ◽  
Robert Boyle ◽  
The Mind

Although the vocation of Christian virtuoso was invented and named by Robert Boyle, Francis Bacon provided the archtype. A Christian virtuoso is an experimental natural philosopher who professes Christianity, who endeavors to unite empiricism and supernatural belief in an intellectual life. In his program for the renewal of the learning Bacon prescribed that the empirical study of nature be the basis of all the sciences, including not only the study of physical things, but of human society, and literature. He insisted that natural causes only be used to explain natural events and proposed not to mix theology with natural philosophy. This became a rule of the Royal Society of London, of which Boyle was a principal founder. Bacon’s rule also had a theological use, to preserve the purity and the divine authority of revelation. In the mind of the Christian virtuoso, nature and divine revelation were separate but complementary sources of truth.

Early British Reactions to Absolutism: 1664 to 1687

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Emily Thomas
Keyword(s):  
Margaret Cavendish ◽  
Robert Boyle ◽  
Ralph Cudworth

This chapter considers early British reactions to absolutism between the start of Barrow’s pertinent lectures in 1664, and the publication of Newton’s Principia in 1687. Although the amount of discussion absolutism received in Britain during this period was much less than it would receive later, it was already capturing the attention of some important thinkers. The reactions to absolutism were mixed. Different kinds of absolutism about space or time was adopted by thinkers such as Samuel Parker, Robert Boyle, and John Turner. In contrast, absolutism was rejected by philosophers such as Margaret Cavendish, Ralph Cudworth, Nathaniel Fairfax, and Anne Conway.

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