Robert Boyle Reconsidered

Front Cover
Michael Hunter
Cambridge University Press, 2003 M12 18 - 252 pages
This book presents a new view of Robert Boyle (1627-91), the leading British scientist in the generation before Newton. It comprises a series of essays by scholars from Europe and North America that scrutinize Boyle's writing on science, philosophy and theology, bringing out the subtlety and complexity of his ideas. Particular attention is given to Boyle's interest in alchemy and to other facets of his ideas that might initially seem surprising in a leading advocate of the mechanical philosophy. Many of the essays use material from among Boyle's extensive manuscripts, which have recently been catalogued for the first time. The introduction surveys the state of Boyle studies and deploys the findings of the essays to offer a reevaluation of Boyle. The book also includes a complete bibliography of writings on Boyle since 1940.
 

Contents

Introduction
1
The present volume
5
The new Boyle
10
Virtue providence and political neutralism Boyle and Interregnum politics
19
Notes
32
Science writing and writing science Boyle and rhetorical theory
37
Notes
52
Learning from experience Boyles construction of an experimental philosophy
57
Boyle and cosmical qualities
119
Notes
135
The theological context of Boyles Things above Reason
139
Notes
152
Parcere nominibus Boyle Hooke and the rhetorical interpretation of Descartes
157
Appendix
170
Notes
171
Teleological reasoning in Boyles Disquisition about Final Causes
177

Notes
74
Carneades and the chemists a study of The Sceptical Chymist and its impact on seventeenthcentury chemistry
79
Notes
89
Boyles alchemical pursuits
91
Notes
102
Boyles debt to corpuscular alchemy
107
Notes
117
Notes
192
Locke and Boyle on miracles and Gods existence
193
Notes
209
Bibliography of writings on Boyle published since 1940
215
Index
227
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