The Value of Facts in Boyle's Experimental Philosophy

Hall M. Boas , “Boyle as a theoretical scientist”, Isis, xli (1950), 261–8, and “The establishment of the mechanical philosophy”, Osiris, x (1952), 412–541; Westfall R. S. , “Unpublished Boyle papers relating to scientific method”, Annals of science, xii (1956), 63–73, 103–17; and idem, The construction of modern science: Mechanisms and mechanics (Cambridge, 1971), esp. pp. 41, 49–50, 75–81.

Shapin S. Schaffer S. , Leviathan and the air-pump: Hobbes, Boyle, and the experimental life (Princeton, 1985). Their conclusions concerning the dictinctive character of Boyle's experimental programme were affirmed, in a broader context of the changing methodologies in seventeenth-century natural philosophy, by Dear P. , Discipline and experience: The mathematical way in the scientific revolution (Chicago, 1995), esp. pp. 227–32. For the recent emphasis in science studies on the relative autonomy, with respect to theory, of experimental research, see, for example, Hacking I. , Representing and intervening (Cambridge, 1983); Galison P. , How experiments end (Chicago, 1987); Gooding D. Pinch T. Schaffer S. (eds), The uses of experiment: Studies in the natural sciences (Cambridge, 1989); Lenoir T. , “Practice, reason, context: The dialogue between theory and experiment”, Science in context, ii (1989), 3–22; Pickering A. (ed.), Science as practice and culture (Chicago, 1992); Buchwald J. Z. (ed.), Scientific practice: Theories and stories of doing physics (Chicago, 1995).

Chalmers A. , “The lack of excellency of Boyle's mechanical philosophy”, Studies in history and philosophy of science, xxiv (1993), 541–64, p. 563.

Ibid., 559.

Hunter M. , “Robert Boyle (1627–91): A suitable case for treatment?”, The British journal for the history of science, xxx (1999), 261–75, p. 263.

Sargent Rose-Mary , The diffident naturalist: Robert Boyle and the philosophy of experiment (Chicago, 1995).

For a more detailed comparison of their respective interpretations, see Ben-Chaim M. , “The intention of experiment”, Essay Review, Studies in history and philosophy of science, xxx (1999), 173–81.

Shapin Schaffer , Leviathan (ref. 2), esp. pp. 22–24; Sargent , The diffident naturalist (ref. 6), esp. pp. 5–20. For Popkin's thesis and its impact on historical studies of English methodological thought, see Popkin R. H. , The history of scepticism from Erasmus to Spinoza (Berkeley, 1979); van Leeuwen Henry G. , The problem of certainty in English thought (The Hague, 1963); Shapiro Barbara , “Latitudinarianism and science in seventeenth-century England”, in Webster C. (ed.), The intellectual revolution of the seventeenth century (London, 1974), 286–316, and Probability and certainty in seventeenth-century England: A study of the relationship between natural science, religion, history, law, and literature (Princeton, 1983); Henry J. , “The scientific revolution in England”, in Porter R. Teich M. (eds), The scientific revolution in national context (Cambridge, 1992), 178–209.

Descartes René , “Discourse on the method”, in The philosophical writings of Descartes , transl. by Cottingham J. Stoothoff R. Murdoch D. (2 vols, Cambridge, 1985), i, 142–3; Garber D. , “Descartes and experiment in the Discourse and Essays”, in Voss S. (ed.), Essays on the philosophy and science of René Descartes (Oxford, 1993), 288–323; Hobbes T. , “Physical dialogue”, transl. by Schaffer S. , in Shapin Schaffer , Leviathan (ref. 2), 345–91; Shapin Schaffer , Leviathan (ref. 2), esp. pp. 115–25.

The distinction between active and passive entitlement was commonly drawn by scholars of legal aspects of ownership, and it often pertained to theological discussions of economic conduct. See, for example, Tuck R. , Natural rights theories: Their origin and development (Cambridge, 1979), esp. pp. 5–7.

The Royal Society of London, MS 195, f. 192. For studies of Boyle's theocentric conception of the natural order, see McGuire J. E. , “Boyle's conception of nature”, Journal of the history of ideas, xxxiii (1972), 523–42; Klaaren E. M. , Religious origins of modern science: Belief in creation in seventeenth-century thought (Grand Rapids, 1977). For a detailed study of Boyle's views and recomendations for accommodating human reasoning to divine rule, see Wojcik Jan W. , Robert Boyle and the limits of reason (Cambridge, 1997).

Boyle R. , “Some considerations touching the usefulness of experimental natural philosophy”, in The works of the Honourable Robert Boyle, ed. by Birch T. (6 vols, London, 1772; reprinted Hildesheim, 1965–66), i, 433.

Boyle , Works (ref. 12), ii, 53.

Boyle R. , “An account of Philaretus”, in Hunter M. (ed.), Robert Boyle by himself and his friends (London, 1994), 4, 7.

Steneck N. H. , “Greatrakes the stroker: The interpretations of historians”, Isis, lxxiii (1982), 161–77; Kaplan B. B. , “Greatrakes the stroker: The interpretations of his contemporaries”, Isis, lxxiii (1982), 178–85.

Boyle , Works (ref. 12), ii, 51.

Ibid., 442–3.

This view explains in part Boyle's objection to intellectual secrecy and proprietary, but it did not abrogate the legitimate claim, in his view, to ownership rights with respect to inventions. See Iliffe R. , “‘In the warehouse’: Privacy, property and priority in the early Royal Society”, History of science, xxx (1992), 29–68; Principe L. M. , “Boyle's alchemical pursuits”, in Hunter (ed.). op. cit. (ref. 14), 91–105.

See, for example, Osier M. , “The intellectual sources of Boyle's philosophy of nature: Gassendi's voluntarism and Boyle's physico-theological project”, in Kroll R. Ashcraft R. Zagorin P. (eds), Philosophy, science and religion in England 1640–1700 (Cambridge, 1992), 178–98; Harwood J. T. , The early essays and ethics of Robert Boyle (Carbondale and Edwardsville, 1991) (for a review of Harwood's demonstration of the conventional character of Boyle's ethical writings, see Shapin Steven , “Personal development and intellectual biography: The case of Robert Boyle”, The British journal for the history of science, xxvi (1993), 335–45; Oster M. , “Biography, culture, and science: The formative years of Robert Boyle”, History of science, xxi (1993), 177–226, and “Virtue, providence and political neutralism: Boyle and Interregnum politics”, in Hunter M. (ed.), Robert Boyle reconsidered (Cambridge, 1994), 19–36; Principe Lawrence M. , “Style and thought of the early Boyle; Discovery of the 1648 manuscript of Seraphic love”, Isis, lxxxv (1994), 247–60.

Hunter M. , “How Boyle became a scientist”, History of science, xxxiii (1995), 59–103. For a different reconstruction of the beginnings of Boyle's scientific career, see Jacob J. R. , “The ideological origins of Robert Boyle's natural philosophy”, Journal of European studies, ii (1972), 1–21.

Bacon , The works of Francis Bacon, ed. by Spedding J. Ellis R. L. Heath D. D. (15 vols, London, 1864–74), iii, 479.

Bacon Francis , The advancement of learning and new Atlantis, ed. by Johnston A. (Oxford, 1980), 116–17.

Ibid., 97–99.

Ibid., 78–80.

Novum Organum, Book I, lxv. For a study of Bacon's conservative outlook on religious reform, see Rabb Theodore K. , “Francis Bacon and the reform of society”, in Rabb Theodore K. Seigel Jerrold E. , Action and conviction in early modern Europe: Essays in memory of E. H. Harbison (Princeton, 1969), 169–93. It is important to note, therefore, that, however important was Boyle's debt to Bacon, it clearly did not pertain to reforming the relationship between religion and the study of nature. In this respect, Shapin and Schaffer's interpretation of Boyle's problem-situation is consistent with its minor attention to Bacon's philosophical writings (especially in comparison with ‘method’-centred studies of Boyle's science, notably Sargent's The diffident naturalist, in which Bacon's legacy plays a prominent role): In as much as Boyle's experimental philosophy directly addressed the crisis of religious authority, it could hardly find assistance in, nor could it be based on Bacon's teachings.

Williams Bernard , Descartes: The project of pure enquiry (Hassocks, 1978), 61; Hobbes T. , Leviathan, ed. by Macpherson C. B. (Harmondsworth, 1975), 117, 132–3; Shapin Schaffer , Leviathan (ref. 2), 92–109.

Boyle Robert , “Some considerations touching the usefulness of experimental natural philosophy”, in Works (ref. 12), i, 441.

Ibid., 439.

Wojcik , Robert Boyle (ref. 11), 212.

Boyle , Works (ref. 12), ii, 55.

Boyle , Works (ref. 12), v, 162.

Ibid., 170.

Ibid.

Several years later, the objection to this common philosophical “error” was reiterated by Newton in a draft of the “General Scholium” of the Principia, where he explained that the proper use of reason was not confined to the assumption that nature was created by God: “He who shall demonstrate that there is a Perfect Being, and does not at the same time demonstrate that he is Lord of the Universe or Pantokrator, will not yet have demonstrated that God exists. A Being eternal, infinite, allwise and most perfect without dominion is not God, but only Nature” (quoted from Hall A. R. Hall M. Boas (eds), Unpublished scientific papers of Isaac Newton (Cambridge, 1978), 363). Newton seems to have followed Boyle in renouncing the common assumption among philosophers that God's dominion could be understood by a methodical reflection upon created nature.

Boyle , Works (ref. 12), v, 35.

Ibid., 18, 21, my emphasis.

Early historical studies tended to attribute to Boyle a coherent “matter theory” whose underlying principles were mechanistic. See, for example, Hall M. Boas , “Boyle” (ref. 1), and Robert Boyle on natural philosophy: An essay with selections from his writings (Bloomington, 1965); Westfall R. S. , The construction of modern science (Cambridge, 1977), 49–50. Other studies demonstrated that Boyle's theological views rendered his mechanistic philosophy more complex. See, for example, McGuire McGuire , op. cit. (ref. 11); Hutchison K. , “What happened to occult qualities in the scientific revolution?”, Isis, lxxiii (1982), 233–53, and “Supernaturalism and the mechanical philosophy”, History of science, xxi (1983), 297–333. More recently, historians have highlighted the central place of non-mechanical qualities in his theory of matter. See, for example, Henry John , “Occult qualities and the experimental philosophy: Active principles in pre-Newtonian matter theory”, History of science, xxiv (1986), 335–81; Schaffer Simon , “Occultism and reason”, in Holland A. J. (ed.), Philosophy, its history and historiography (Dordrecht, 1985), 117–43, and “Godly men and mechanical philosophers; Souls and spirits in restoration natural philosophy”, Science in context, i (1987), 55–85; Clericuzio A. , “A redefinition of Boyle's chemistry and corpuscular philosophy”, Annals of science, xlvii (1990), 561–89. For a more philosophically analytic examination of Boyle's causal notion of the relational qualities of physical bodies, see O'Toole R. J. , “Qualities and powers in the corpuscular philosophy of Robert Boyle”, Journal of the history of philosophy, xii (1974), 295–315.

Boyle , Works (ref. 12), v, 524.

Ibid., 540.

Dear , Discipline (ref. 2), 48–50, 101–5, 227–32. See also Daston L. , “Baconian facts, academic civility, and the prehistory of objectivity”, Annals of scholarship, viii (1991), 337–63. Dear and Daston explained Boyle's conception of experience in accordance with Shapin and Schaffer's thesis, but, in accordance with Popkin's thesis, they claimed that the social crisis of authority was confined to neither England nor the Restoration era. Daston accordingly emphasized Boyle's debt to Bacon, in this respect, as against Shapin and Schaffer's thesis, which minimized its significance. Her view seems to have been later endorsed by S. Shapin, in his A Social history of truth: Civility and science in seventeenth-century England (Chicago, 1994).

Boyle , Works (ref. 12), ii, 29.

Cameron Euan , The European Reformation (Oxford, 1992), esp. pp. 156–8.

Haller W. , in his The rise of Puritanism (New York, 1957), esp. pp. 83–127, demonstrated that the propagation of popular piety by preachers was in part the result of the political inability of Puritan leaders to establish a Reformation from above. Thus, religious conduct in everyday life became the most important domain of Puritan reform. Haller's thesis is further elaborated in Lake Peter , Moderate Puritans and the Elizabethan Church (Cambridge, 1982). For studies of Puritan piety in everyday life, see also Hill Christopher , Society and Puritanism in pre-Revolutionary England (New York, 1964); Watkins O. C. , The Puritan experience (London, 1972); Morgan John , Godly learning: Puritan attitudes towards reason, learning, and education, 1560–1640 (Cambridge, 1986), esp. pp. 142–71; Todd Margo , Christian humanism and the puritan social order (Cambridge, 1987).

Morgan , Godly learning (ref. 43), 58–59.

Rogers John , Ohel or Beth-Shemesh: A tabernacle for the sun (London, 1653), 354. Quoted from Watkins Watkins , The Puritan experience (ref. 43), 29.

Boyle , Works (ref. 12), vi, 717. Note, however, that Boyle's statement, in this context, does not show that he was a Puritan, and the Puritans' discussion about the religious experiment does not mean that such an experiment was only relevant to Puritanism. By virtue of its internal organization during the first decades of the seventeenth century, Puritanism was a very effective vehicle of reform, especially of religious practices of relatively educated people, and the historical evidence shows, at least, a similarity between Boyle's view and the common view among Puritans. The similarity is indirectly supported by the aforementioned studies on Puritanism which show how Puritans propagated views that were very often accepted by other clergymen with a humanist background in England and other Protestant communities.

Boyle , Works (ref. 12), vi, 715.

Hobbes , Leviathan (ref. 26), 147–8.

Descartes René , Oeuvres de Descartes, ed. by Adam C. Tannery P. (12 vols, Paris, 1897–1910), iii, 39. Quoted from Blake Ralph M. Ducasse Curt J. Madden Edward H. , Theories of scientific method: The Renaissance through the nineteenth century (New York, 1989), 76. See also Garber , “Descartes” (ref. 9).

Boyle , Works (ref. 12), i, 262.

Boyle , Works (ref. 12), v, 539.

Boyle , Works (ref. 12), iv, 597.

The intellectual value of signs had always been recognized by philosophers, but it was often construed in terms of the methodology of empirical inference rather than the explication of the fundamental principles of natural causality. Gassendi and Bacon, for example, pointed out that the interpretation of signs could establish true empirical correlations. Thus, Gassendi argued that the proof of pores in the skin was valid because it was indubitably inferred from the appearance of sweat over the skin, while Bacon noted that natural history could similarly demonstrate the correlation between heat and friction. For the inferior status of these correlations compared to the philosophical explication of natural causality, see Hacking Ian , The emergence of probability (Cambridge, 1975), 39–48; Egan Howard T. , Gassendi's view of knowledge: A study of the epistemological basis of his logic (New York, 1984), esp. pp. 77–84; Sarasohn Lisa T. , Gassendi's ethics: Freedom in a mechanistic universe (Ithaca, 1996), esp. pp. 39–48; Bacon , Works (ref. 21), i, 236–56, 261–8; iv, 127–55; Jardine Lisa , Francis Bacon: Discovery and the art of discourse (Cambridge, 1974), esp. pp. 109–32; Perez-Ramos Antonio , Francis Bacon's idea of science and the maker's knowledge tradition (Oxford, 1988), esp. pp. 243–54.

Boyle , Works (ref. 12), v, 3, 6, 17.

Boyle , Works (ref. 12), ii, 170.

Boyle , Works (ref. 12), iii, 47.

Boyle , Works (ref. 12), iv, 416. For detailed studies of Boyle's religious views on the limits of human reasoning, see Mulligan Lotte , “Robert Boyle, ‘Right reason’, and the meaning of metaphor”, Journal of the history of ideas, lv (1994), 235–57; Wojcik , Boyle (ref. 11).

Boyle , Works (ref. 12), ii, 45. For Boyle's critique of the language of chemical explanation, see Clericuzio A. , “Carneades and the chemists: A study of The sceptical chymist and its impact on seventeenth-century chemistry”, in Hunter (ed.), Robert Boyle (ref. 19), 79–90.

Boyle , Works (ref. 12), iv, 453.

Boyle , Works (ref. 12), i, 404.

Ibid., 309.

Westfall , The construction (ref. 1), 49.

Boyle often compared the spring of air to the elasticity of wool, an analogy he apparently borrowed from Pascal. In “The general history of the air” he listed several mechanical images, and noted his debt to Descartes. See Boyle , Works (ref. 12), v, 613–15; Pascal B. , Traité de la pesanteur de la masse d'air (Paris, 1956), 34–40.

Boyle , Works (ref. 12), i, 33.

Shapin Schaffer , Leviathan (ref. 2), esp. chap. 4.

Boyle , Works (ref. 12), iii, 274–6.

Ibid., 274.

The explanatory value and rhetorical function of the experimental report as a presentation of an experimental technique is further discussed in Ben-Chaim M. , “Doctrine and use: Newton's ‘gift of preaching’”, History of science, xxxvi (1998), 269–98, which highlights the analogy between Newton's research in optics and Boyle's experimental pneumatics.

Sprat T. , A discourse made by the Ld Bishop of Rochester to the clergy of his diocese, at his visitation in the year 1695 (London, 1696), 352; see also Patrick S. , A friendly debate between a conformist and a non-conformist (London, 1669), 7–10.

For a different interpretation of the Society's motto, see Dear P. , “Totius in verba: Rhetoric and authority in the early Royal Society”, Isis, lxxvi (1985), 145–61. As the title of his paper suggests, Dear claimed that the Society's emphasis on the practical value of experimental philosophy was predominantly a rhetorical gesture whose intention was to warrant the authority of experimental records. Following Popkin, Dear construed the experimental programme as a response to the crisis of scepticism, and for this reason his interpretation focused on the rhetoric of valid inference. The discipline of divine service and the mission of the gifted experimenter discussed in this paper explain, from a different perspective, how practice became the crucial dimension of the programme, at least as it was presented in Boyle's career. According to this interpretation, rhetoric accompanied the practice of transmitting God's gift but did not and, arguably, could not replace it.

Sprat T. , The history of the Royal-Society of London, for the improving of natural knowledge (London, 1667), 430.

Locke J. , An essay concerning human understanding, ed. by Nidditch Peter H. (Oxford, 1975), 9; Marshall J. , John Locke: Resistance, religion and responsibility (Cambridge, 1994), 9–11, 30–31.

Newton I. , Opticks (New York, 1952), 405.

Newton I. , “Treatise on revelation”, in Manuel Frank E. , The religion of Isaac Newton (Oxford, 1974), 113.

There are numerous anthropological studies on the reciprocation of gifts which are based on ethnographic evidence linking the collective satisfaction of human needs to benevolent deities. The classical statement on this subject is Mauss M. , The gift: The form and reason for exchange in archaic societies , transl. by Halls W. D. (London, 1990), published originally in French in 1935. For more recent studies, see for example, Thompson E. P. , “The moral economy of the English crowd in the eighteenth century”, Past and present, 1 (1971), 76–136; Campbell C. , The Romantic ethic and the spirit of modern consumerism (Oxford, 1987); Cheal D. , The gift economy (London, 1988); Carrier J. , “Gifts, commodities, and social relations: A Maussian view of exchange”, Sociological forum, vi (1991), 119–36; Schrift Alan D. (ed.), The logic of the gift: Toward an ethic of generosity (New York, 1997).

Cameron , The European Reformation (ref. 42).

For the ascendance of science as a new social power in relation to the traditional cultural dominance of the Church in late seventeenth-century and eighteenth-century England, see Jacob M. C. , The Newtonians and the English Revolution, 1689–1720 (Ithaca, 1976); Stewart L. , The rise of public science: Rhetoric, technology, and natural philosophy in Newtonian Britain, 1660–1750 (Cambridge, 1992); Fara P. , Sympathetic attractions: Magnetic practices, beliefs and symbolism in eighteenth-century England (Princeton, 1996).