Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Boyle, Robert'

Dissertação apresentada para cumprimento dos requisitos necessários à obtenção do grau de Mestre em Filosofia Geral
É bem sabido que Robert Boyle (1627-91) foi um dos principais divulgadores da filosofia mecânica na segunda metade do século XVII. O que não se conhece tão bem é a defesa que faz das causas finais, numa obra intitulada A Disquisition About the Final Causes of Natural Things, na qual afirma que a causa final é um recurso valioso para a metafísica e para a física, procurando contrariar, assim, a tendência de alguns filósofos seus contemporâneos para a expulsão das causas finais dos sistemas explicativos da natureza. Este estudo visa a determinação do papel da causa final no mecanicismo de Boyle. Para isso, são identificados dois sentidos em que se pode considerar o mecanicismo de Boyle, um, de cariz ontológico ou metafísico, e o outro, de ordem física, para depois se avaliar a importância da causa final, a partir dos elementos recolhidos em Final Causes.

This thesis attempts to describe the similarities and the differences between Boyle's position and Locke's on the primary and secondary quality distinction.
It is in the Corpuscular Hypothesis that Boyle draws the distinction between primary and secondary qualities. Locke not only accepts the Corpuscular Hypothesis but also presents some arguments to support it.
Chapter 1 and Chapter 2 respectively examine the differences in the positions of Boyle and Locke on primary and secondary qualities, in their lists of primary qualities, the terminologies they employ, and the scopes of their discussions. Little attention has previously been paid to these differences.
Chapter 3 discusses the essence of the primary/secondary quality distinction. My point is that the distinction between primary and secondary qualities is really a distinction between two kinds of powers for both Boyle and Locke.

This thesis aims to contextualise the disorder characteristic of Boyle's works at all stages of the compositional process, in terms of seventeenth-century discussions about structuring knowledge. This disorder is discussed by Boyle, his contemporaries and later scholars, but has previously been insufficiently understood in terms of his intellectual project. Chapter one shows that seventeenth-century models present correct ordering as determining the epistemological status of information. In particular, it is understood as the means of moving from 'historical' collections of factual data (including experimental results) to 'philosophical' knowledge. Disorderly works are inevitable in the intermediate stages of a progress from piecemeal, preparatory, probable natural history to natural philosophy. Chapter two opens my exploration of the material processes of Boyle's knowledge creation, by examining Boyle's manuscripts for evidence of his aspirations to and achievement of the systematic redistribution of factual data. His methods are contextualised via the stipulations of the commonplace method, and the practices of his contemporaries. Chapter three investigates the structures of Boyle'S published works (particularly his collections of essays), exploring his development of printed modes which resist characterisation as stable and complete. Boyle's piecemeal publications are situated in relation to those of his contemporaries, and especially the early Philosophical Transactions. Chapter four considers Boyle's prefatory representation of the disorder of his works in print, which emphasises the apparent failure of his work to conform to literary and philosophical expectations. Boyle presents his literary failings as rhetorically appropriate, however, given his subject matter and audience. The disorder of Boyle's works has been criticised from his own time on. Reevaluating their distinctive fragmentation in the light of the seventeenth-century understanding of the significance of the organisation of natural knowledge, my thesis suggests that their arrangement reflects, and constitutes, their intellectual scope. In their provisional forms, Boyle's experimental texts embody the intermediate epistemological status of their content

The thesis presents an intellectual history of air. It investigates a critical period when the concept of air changed from being an all pervasive 'element' within a predominantly Aristotelian cosmology, to an 'ocean', or a fluid and particulate body with mass and weight. The thesis is set in the context of the seventeenth-century revolution in science in England and is focused on the pneumatic work of Robert Boyle. The question behind the thesis is raised by a specific experiment published by Boyle in 1672 when he describes how he tried, and failed, to produce gnats in a flask that had been evacuated of air by his air-pump. The historical aspect of the thesis examines the development of the vacuum, a new and revolutionary experimental site, in tandem with the equally revolutionary developments in physiology. The philosophical aspect of the thesis examines the conceptual ideas being played out in the Gnat Experiment and the relation between natural philosophy and theology. In terms of its empirical method the experiment was emblematic of the new science being developed by Boyle. The ambition behind the experiment, however, and Boyle's disappointment at its failure, engages another level of enquiry. Of particular interest is the problem of 'thinking matter' and the conflicts it provoked in relation to discussions of air and the vacuum, life and soul. Though reignited by Descartes, the discussion can be traced back to the early theories of air in Presocratic philosophy and the development of the 'pneumatic tradition' through later Socratic and Stoic philosophy, as well as Christian theology, in the guise of pneuma. It becomes apparent that Boyle's 'air' engages a complex field of concepts and arguments that can be traced back to the beginnings of philosophy and science, and that are still burning.

This dissertation looks at the life and work of famed English Aristocrat Robert Boyle. Specifically, I examine his treatment of generation and its organizing forces—seminal principles, plastic powers, and petrifick spirits. Generation, I argue, provided the context by which Boyle was introduced both to chymistry and anatomy. The problem of generation would remain at the forefront of his concerns as he experimented in chymistry, pneumatics, minerals, anatomy, transmutation, and plants. Looking at the various communities in Europe with which Robert Boyle interacted, I show that the mechanical philosophy was actually quite diverse. As one of the most influential scholars of his time, Boyle presents a distinctly mechanical account of generation that would have a profound effect upon Western science.

Orientador: Fátima Regina Rodrigues Évora
Tese (doutorado) - Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Instituto de Filosofia e Ciências Huimanas
Made available in DSpace on 2018-08-16T11:47:50Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Cecon_Kleber_D.pdf: 1520746 bytes, checksum: 5b636b8430205a01ac329dd3d8a5814a (MD5) Previous issue date: 2010
Resumo: O objetivo dessa tese é analisar a filosofia mecânica de Robert Boyle, visando mostrar a compatibilidade entre o seu pensamento químico e mecanicista. Apesar de não poder ser provada por experimentos alquímicos, a filosofia mecânica de Boyle é corroborada por eles e os mesmos tiveram grande importância na refutação das formas substanciais e qualidades reais da escolástica. Os experimentos alquímicos tornam-se importantes na medida em que é necessário elucidar como eles são usados na defesa do mecanicismo boyleano. Visando auxiliar a compreensão dos mesmos, foram analisados aqueles que Boyle julgava mais aptos para esse fim, assim como a tradução química para a correspondente linguagem da química contemporânea
Abstract: The goal of this thesis is to demonstrate that there is no opposition between Robert Boyle's alchemy and mechanicism. Despite the fact that Boyle's mechanical philosophy cannot be proved by alchemical experiments, it is supported theoretically by them and they had great importance in the refutation of the scholastic's substantial forms and real qualities. The alchemical experiments are important since is necessary to elucidate how they were used to defend the boylean mechanicism. In order to better comprehend these experiments, some of them, which Boyle judged to be the most suitable for the task, were selected and chemically translated into modern chemical language
Doutorado
Filosofia
Doutor em Filosofia

The purpose of this study is to examine how English natural philosophers of the seventeenth century—in particular, Robert Boyle (1627-1691) considered and assessed the personal traits of skill and experience and the significance of these characteristics to the practice of seventeenth-century science. Boyle's writings reveal that skill and experience impacted various aspects of his seventeenth-century experimental natural philosophy, including the credibility assessment of tradesmen and eyewitnesses to natural phenomena, the contingencies involved in the making of experiments, and Boyle's statements about the requisite skills of experimental philosophy in contrast to other traditions. Subtopics explored include the popularization of science and Boyle's expectations concerning the future improvement of natural philosophy.

A number of historians of science have claimed that the early Boyle Sermons provided a platform for the promotion of a moderate-Anglican social and political ideology underpinned by Newtonian natural philosophy. However, by examining in detail the texts of Richard Bentley, John Harris and Samuel Clarke, this thesis argues that their Sermons should not be characterised as 'Newtonian'. These texts were highly complex literary productions constructed with the intention of achieving victory over the enemies of Christianity. An examination of their rhetorical strategies focuses attention on the use to which various cognitive materials - including natural philosophy - were put. Thus the presence of Newtonian concepts in the texts is explained by the aims and overall scholarly programmes of the Lecturers. It will also be argued that the term 'Boyle Lectureship' is problematic and that the main elements of the Lectureship - Robert Boyle's bequest, the Trustees, the Lecturers, and the Sermons - cannot be conflated into a single historical unit. Therefore, throughout this study, emphasis is placed on the contingent and singular behaviour of individuals located within an ecclesiastical and scholarly community, where career promotion and the notion of scholarly credit were important. The brief in Boyle's last will and testament stipulated that the Lecturers must defend Christianity using the scholarly tools to hand. In this thesis it will be shown that the personnel of the Lectureship conformed to Boyle's brief and that they utilised all available methods and materials in the pursuance of their legal and institutional responsibilities. This approach removes the analysis of the Lectureship from an overarching sociological perspective; instead the Sermons are interpreted as exemplary texts in the rhetorical prosecution of the enemies of Christianity. This study, therefore, acknowledges the complex nature of theological texts in early modern England.

The interview focuses on McAlmon's Chinese Opera, a collection which won the Governor General's Award for poetry in 1980. Scobie also discusses other writers in the circle around Gertrude Stein in Paris in the 1920s, and some of Scobie's contempories.

In this thesis I will offer an extended discussion and critique of an important social constructivist book, Steven Shapin and Simon Schaffer's Leviathan and the Air-Pump (1985), focusing on its reception and its standing in science and technology studies in the fifteen years since its publication. This work claims to be an "origins" story for the modern form of life that we now call the scientific community, and this claim has not itself been contested strongly by other scholars. Central to Shapin and Schaffer's argument for the socially constructed nature of scientific knowledge, is the contrast they find between the community orientation of Robert Boyle and the anti-community stance of Thomas Hobbes. In the course of this thesis, I question the validity not only of this contrast, but of the origins story itself. I suggest that while experimental, communally-practiced science and modernity did emerge together around the end of the seventeenth-century, the qualities of science that Shapin and Schaffer suggest are distinctive of modern science might more accurately be represented as distinctive of modern science. In other words, I suggest that the story of Leviathan and the Air-Pump is not so much an origins story for science as it is emblematic of the early influence of widespread European modernist culture on scientific practices. Leviathan and the Air-Pump is an important case to study in order to unravel the strands of science and modernity because it occupies simultaneously both the early and late margins of the modern period: first, by taking the contested but emergent modernism represented by Robert Boyle as its subject and, second, as a work of scholarship that sits on the far margins of the modern period. My method is to treat Shapin and Schaffer's work as a central primary source for understanding how contemporary science and technology studies scholarship deals with early modern science. A side product of this analysis is to suggest strongly that Shapin and Schaffer's account of the social construction of scientific knowledge is itself socially constructed: that is, it is highly selective in its presentation and interpretation of historical evidence. I also consider what the implications may be for separating modernity from science, and for thinking about how science might be practiced in the age that will follow -- perhaps is already following -- the modern period.
Master of Science

La thèse porte sur le statut du corps dans la philosophie de Spinoza. Une première partie de la thèse reconstruit la façon dont Spinoza thématise la corporéité, à partir du Court Traité et du problème de l’attribution à Dieu d’une nature étendue. En outre, on démontre aussi que la position qu’on trouve dans l’Ethique est le résultat d’un travail intellectuel qui n’était pas encore accompli au début de l’itinéraire de Spinoza. En particulier, on souligne qu’une meilleure réflexion sur les concepts de partie et du tout, sur la nature des passions et sur le concept de détermination sera essentielle à ce développement. Dans la deuxième partie de la thèse, on considère trois milieux de référence pour situer la pensée spinozienne par rapport aux enjeux de la nouvelle philosophie de la nature de la seconde moitié du XVIIe siècle. D’abord, on reconsidère le statut de la seconde partie des Principes de la philosophie de Descartes et on montre l’infidélité de Spinoza à Descartes sur plusieurs points. Il s’agit d’une infidélité systématique qui témoigne de l’effort spinozien pour donner une cohérence à l’usage du concept cartésien le plus ambigu, celui de détermination. Ensuite, on montre que tout en essayant de poursuivre dans cette ligne, Spinoza peut avoir trouvé chez Hobbes des instruments intellectuels importants. Il s’agit surtout de l’usage que Hobbes fait du concept de mouvement comme véritable essence de tout phénomène physique, dont résulte sa conception du conatus. Cependant, on démontre aussi le désaccord entre la conception hobbesienne de la causalité et la position définitive de Spinoza. A ce propos, on propose de reconsidérer la pensée de Robert Boyle comme l’autre source décisive qui permet à Spinoza de développer sa réflexion physique plutôt du coté de l’activité des corps. Ce faisant, on souligne – en troisième lieu – que Spinoza va s’opposer au développement majeur du cartésianisme de ces années, c’est-à-dire l’occasionalisme, surtout dans la forme que lui avait donnait Arnold Geulincx
My dissertation examins Spinoza’s account of bodies. I devote the first part of my dissertation to investigating how and why issues linked to the concept of body and, more generally, to physics, become real problems for Spinoza. This leads to the important result of reevaluating the first steps of Spinoza’s philosophical career. I stress the theological context in which, in the Short Treatise (1661 c.a.), the concept of body appeared for the first time as a challenge. How is it possible to demonstrate that the extension is an attribute of God and thus that finite bodies are modifications of God’s infinite substance? In order to answer this question, Spinoza will be forced to work out different further conceptual tools, most notably the mereological part/whole distinction, the status of natural law and the conatus doctrine. My chronological approach shows that the achievements we find in the Ethics (1675) are only the last and most consistent version of Spinoza’s philosophy, which underwrite several major changes through his development. This methodological approach allows us to appreciate several key shifts in Spinoza’s position and thus to frame in a more determinate way the problem of his sources. Firstly, I address the highly debated question of the dependence of Spinoza’s physics on Descartes’ own project. I focus on Spinoza’s attempt to make coherent Descartes’ use of the concept of determination, which turns to be crucial for Spinoza’s own account of physical interactions. As a second step, I explore Spinoza’s relationship with two key figures of the English Modern culture in the pre-Newtonian period: Thomas Hobbes and Robert Boyle. I stress Spinoza’s debt with Hobbes but also the discrepancies between their accounts of causal interactions. In that view, I underline that Robert Boyle provides an important framework to understand Spinoza’s ontology of activity. As a third and final step, I compare Spinoza’s own evolution with the rise of Occasionalism, which was at the same time a chronologically parallel, but philosophically opposite development of Descartes’ project

This thesis is an extensive investigation of the use and the concept of the laws of nature in the works of Robert Boyle. Care has been taken to place Boyle's use in both the general linguistic context of his age and the context of each specific text. The thesis finds two uses of the laws of nature in Boyle's works, the prescriptive and descriptive, and traces these to two different historical origins. It also traces Boyle's concept of the laws of nature to two different medieval doctrines, voluntarism and concurrentism. This thesis both challenges the received view of the origins of the laws of nature in the seventeenth century and argues that there is more continuity between the discourse of the late middle ages and the early modern period than is sometimes thought. That is, in developing his concept of the laws of nature, Boyle translates the scholastic discourse of voluntarism and concurrentism into the mechanical philosophy.

Esta tese é sobre a filosofia da natureza de Robert Boyle que subjaz à sua investigação experimental da natureza. Uma vez que Boyle é um dos mais conhecidos promotores da filosofia mecânica ou corpuscular, é frequente encontrar-se autores que lhe atribuem uma filosofia da natureza mecanicista, segundo a qual a matéria é inerte e as entidades naturais carecem de poderes ativos. Esta interpretação casa bem com a ideia, também atribuída a Boyle por muitos autores, segundo a qual as leis da natureza são impostas por Deus, a todo o momento, ao mundo. Dado que a matéria é meramente passiva, a fonte da atividade e da ordem na natureza tem de proceder de fora da natureza. O principal objetivo deste trabalho é averiguar se, de facto, a filosofia da natureza de Boyle é mecanicista ou se, pelo contrário, pressupõe que a atividade que se observa no mundo procede dos poderes causais que os corpos possuem em virtude das suas essências. Há boas razões para interpretar a filosofia da natureza de Boyle deste modo, uma vez que invoca frequentemente as naturezas dos corpos, os seus poderes e tendências, para explicar os fenómenos naturais. Existem também razões fortes para considerar que a ordem que se observa na natureza procede das essências dos seres naturais. Uma vez que um dos principais motivos que leva a pensar que Boyle tem em mente uma filosofia da natureza mecanicista é a excelência que atribui à sua hipótese mecânica, este trabalho começa pela consideração do papel da hipótese mecânica no estudo experimental da natureza.
This thesis is about the philosophy of nature of Robert Boyle that lies in the background of his experimental study of nature. Since Boyle is one of the most wellknown promoters of the mechanical or corpuscular philosophy, it is usual to find authors that attribute to him a mechanistic philosophy of nature, i.e., a philosophy based on the notions that matter is inert and that natural entities lack active powers. This way of interpreting Boyle’s philosophy of nature is compatible with the idea, also attributed to him by many authors, that the laws of nature are constantly imposed on the world by God. Since matter is merely passive, the source of activity and order must come from outside nature. The main goal of this thesis is to see whether Boyle’s philosophy of nature is mechanistic or, on the contrary, if it presupposes that the source of activity that we see in the word are the causal powers that bodies have according to their essences. There are good reasons to interpret Boyle’s philosophy of nature this way, because he frequently invokes the natures of bodies, their powers and tendencies, to explain natural phenomena. There are also good reasons to think that the order that we see in nature comes from the essences of natural beings. Since one of the main motives to consider that Boyle has in mind a mechanistic philosophy of nature is his defense of the excellency of the mechanical hypothesis, this work starts with a study of the role of the mechanical hypothesis in the experimental study of nature.

This dissertation examines the theological writing and preaching of Robert Boyte Crawford Howell, Southern Baptist pastor, editor, author, and denominational leader in the mid-nineteenth century. It argues that Howell promoted Baptist denominational participation in what many historians call "the benevolent empire" by demonstrating in his soteriology, ecclesiology, and eschatology the consistent connection between divine sovereignty and human responsibility in God's mission to the world. The dissertation demonstrates that Howell responded to the challenges brought to the burgeoning missions and benevolent movement among Baptists, particularly from antimission Baptists, populist Arminian, the Restoration Movement, pedobaptists, and Landmarkers, by constructing a theological foundation for the church's mission built upon a carefully integrated view of divine sovereignty and human responsibility. Chapter one outlines the rise of the missions and benevolent movement among American denominations in the nineteenth century, known by historians as "the benevolent empire," giving attention to the beginning of Baptist denominational work. The chapter further describes Howell's ministerial labors on behalf of missions and benevolence throughout his ministry and the desire he articulated to provide a solid theological foundation for the movement. The dissertation is organized according to systematic-theological categories in order to demonstrate the integration Howell endeavored to achieve in each doctrine in the midst of pressures from various opponents. Chapter two analyzes Howell's view of the divine decrees, providing analysis of his position on election and reprobation. Chapter three analyzes Howell's views on human depravity and the role of the Holy Spirit in the regeneration of the soul and revival in the church. Chapter four analyzes Howell's view of Christ's work on the cross, focusing on the covenant of redemption, the nature and extent of the atonement, justification, faith, repentance, sanctification, and perseverance. Chapter five sets forth Howell's convictions about God's mission for the church, the polity that God had ordained for the accomplishment of that mission, and the proper perspective on cooperation with other believers for the sake of missions. Chapter six explains Howell's postmillennial convictions and the impetus his missions and benevolent work received from this doctrine. Chapter seven contains a summary, conclusion, and prospects for future research.
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