Serious philosophical reflection on the nature of experiment began in earnest in the seventeenth century. This paper expounds the most influential philosophy of experiment in seventeenth-century England, the Bacon-Boyle-Hooke view of experiment. It is argued that this can only be understood in the context of the new experimental philosophy practised according to the Baconian theory of natural history. The distinctive typology of experiments of this view is discussed, as well as its account of the relation between experiment and theory. This leads into an assessment of other recent discussions of early modern experiment, namely, those of David Gooding, Thomas Kuhn, J.E. Tiles and Peter Dear.
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Robert Boyle, “Two Essays Concerning the Unsuccessfulness of Experiments,” Certain Physiological Essays, The Works of Robert Boyle, 14 vols., eds. Michael Hunter and E.B. Davis (London, 1999–2000), II: 37–82.
See Peter R. Anstey and Alberto Vanzo, “The Origins of Early Modern Experimental Philosophy,” Intellectual History Review, 22 (2012), 499–518.
See David R. Oldroyd, “Some Writings of Robert Hooke on Procedures for the Prosecution of Scientific Inquiry, including his ‘Lectures of Things Requisite to a Natural History’,” Notes and Records of the Royal Society, 41 (1987), 145–167 at 151–159; and Boyle’s “Design about Natural History” and affiliated manuscripts in The Text of Robert Boyle’s “Designe about Natural History,” eds. Michael Hunter and Peter R. Anstey, The Robert Boyle Project, Occasional Paper No. 3, 2008. For commentary on Boyle’s “Designe,” see Peter R. Anstey and Michael Hunter, “Robert Boyle’s ‘Designe about Natural History’,” Early Science and Medicine, 13 (2008), 83–126.
Hooke says, “until this Repository be pretty well stored with choice and sound Materials, the Work of raising new Axiomes or Theories is not to be attempted,” General Scheme, Posthumous Works, 18.
Isaac Newton to Francis Ashton, 18 May 1669, The Correspondence of Isaac Newton, 7 vols., eds. H.W. Turnbull, J.F. Scott, A.R. Hall, & M.B. Hall (Cambridge, 1959–1977), I: 10.
Hooke, Micrographia, 54. See also Hooke’s An Attempt to Prove the Motion of the Earth (London, 1674), 2; Lectures and Collections (London, 1678), 55; Royal Society Classified Papers, xx.80 (Michael Hunter alerted me to this reference); Isaac Newton, “A letter of Mr. Isaac Newton … containing his New Theory about Light and Colour,” Philosophical Transactions, 80 (1672), 3075–87, at 3078.
Hooke, “Things Requisite to a Natural History,” 158. See also Hooke, An Attempt for the Explication of the Phaenomena, 41–42.
Peter R. Anstey, “Robert Boyle and the Heuristic Value of Mechanism,” Studies in History and Philosophy of Science, 33 (2002), 161–174.
James Tyrrell to Locke, 7 January 1693, The Correspondence of John Locke, 8 vols, ed. E.S. de Beer (Oxford, 1976–1989), IV: 619.
Locke, “Advertisement of the Publisher to the Reader,” General History of the Air, Works of Robert Boyle, XII: 5. Locke’s interleaved copy is in the Bodleian Library, Call Number: Locke 9.17.
David Gooding, “Experiment,” in A Companion to the Philosophy of Science, ed. W.H. Newton-Smith (Oxford, 2000), 117–126, at 117, italics added.
David Gooding, “Experiment,” in A Companion to the Philosophy of Science, ed. W.H. Newton-Smith (Oxford, 2000), 117–126, at 117, italics added.
David Gooding, “Experiment,” in A Companion to the Philosophy of Science, ed. W.H. Newton-Smith (Oxford, 2000), 117–118, italics added.
David Gooding, “Experiment,” in A Companion to the Philosophy of Science, ed. W.H. Newton-Smith (Oxford, 2000), 119.
Kuhn, “Mathematical versus Experimental Traditions,” 44. See also Gooding, “Experiment,” 117.
Kuhn, “Mathematical versus Experimental Traditions,” 44. See also Gooding, “Experiment,” 50.
See Peter R. Anstey, “The Methodological Origins of Newton’s Queries,” Studies in History and Philosophy of Science, 35 (2004), 247–269.
J.E. Tiles, “Experiment as Intervention,” British Journal for the Philosophy of Science, 44 (1993), 463–475, 466.
J.E. Tiles, “Experiment as Intervention,” British Journal for the Philosophy of Science, 44 (1993), 469.
J.E. Tiles, “Experiment as Intervention,” British Journal for the Philosophy of Science, 44 (1993), 469.
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Serious philosophical reflection on the nature of experiment began in earnest in the seventeenth century. This paper expounds the most influential philosophy of experiment in seventeenth-century England, the Bacon-Boyle-Hooke view of experiment. It is argued that this can only be understood in the context of the new experimental philosophy practised according to the Baconian theory of natural history. The distinctive typology of experiments of this view is discussed, as well as its account of the relation between experiment and theory. This leads into an assessment of other recent discussions of early modern experiment, namely, those of David Gooding, Thomas Kuhn, J.E. Tiles and Peter Dear.
All Time | Past Year | Past 30 Days | |
---|---|---|---|
Abstract Views | 774 | 156 | 15 |
Full Text Views | 289 | 26 | 8 |
PDF Views & Downloads | 186 | 44 | 11 |