Table Of Content

Experiment, Speculation and Religion in Early Modern Philosophy Experimental philosophy was an exciting and extraordinarily successful development in the study of nature in the seventeenth century. Yet experimental philosophy was not without its critics and was far from the only natural philosophical method on the scene. In particular, experimental philosophy was contrasted with and set against speculative philosophy and, in some quarters, was accused of tending to irreligion. This volume brings together ten scholars of early modern philosophy, history and science in order to shed new light on the complex relations between experiment, speculation and religion in early modern Europe. The first six chapters of the book focus on the respective roles of experimental and speculative philosophy in individual seventeenth-century philosophers. They include Francis Bacon, Robert Boyle, Margaret Cavendish, Thomas Hobbes, John Locke and Isaac Newton. The next two chapters deal with the relation between experimental philosophy and religion with a special focus on hypotheses and natural religion. The penultimate chapter takes a broader European perspective and examines the paucity of concerns with religion among Italian natural philosophers of the period. Finally, the concluding chapter draws all these individuals and themes together to provide a critical appraisal of recent scholarship on experimental philosophy. This book is the first collection of chapters on the subject of early modern experimental philosophy. It will appeal to scholars and students of early modern philosophy, science and religion. Alberto Vanzo is an independent scholar based in the United Kingdom. He has been a Marie Curie fellow at the universities of Birmingham and Warwick. His research in early modern philosophy ranges from Kant to experimental philosophy. Peter R. Anstey FAHA is Professor of Philosophy in the School of Philosophical and Historical Inquiry at the University of Sydney. He specializes in early modern philosophy with a focus on John Locke, Robert Boyle and the French Philosophes. He is the author of John Locke and Natural Philosophy (2011) and editor of The Oxford Handbook of British Philosophy in the Seventeenth Century (2013). Routledge Studies in Seventeenth-Century Philosophy Material Falsity and Error in Descartes’ Meditations Cecilia Wee Leibniz’s Final System Monads, Matter, and Animals Glenn A. Hartz Pierre Bayle’s Cartesian Metaphysics Rediscovering Early Modern Philosophy Todd Ryan Insiders and Outsiders in Seventeenth-Century Philosophy Edited by G.A.J. Rogers, Tom Sorell and Jill Kraye Vanishing Matter and the Laws of Nature Descartes and Beyond Edited by Dana Jalobeanu and Peter R. Anstey Locke and Leibniz on Substance Edited by Paul Lodge and Tom Stoneham Locke’s Science of Knowledge Matthew Priselac The Idea of Principles in Early Modern Thought Interdisciplinary Perspectives Edited by Peter R. Anstey Physics and Metaphysics in Descartes and in his Reception Edited by Delphine Antoine-Mahut and Sophie Roux Experiment, Speculation and Religion in Early Modern Philosophy Edited by Alberto Vanzo and Peter R. Anstey For more information about this series, please visit: www.routledge. com/Routledge-Studies-in-Seventeenth-Century-Philosophy/book-series/ SE0420 Experiment, Speculation and Religion in Early Modern Philosophy Edited by Alberto Vanzo and Peter R. Anstey First published 2019 by Routledge 52 Vanderbilt Avenue, New York, NY 10017 and by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2019 Taylor & Francis The right of the editors to be identified as the authors of the editorial material, and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Vanzo, Alberto, editor. Title: Experiment, speculation, and religion in early modern philosophy / edited by Alberto Vanzo and Peter R. Anstey. Description: 1 [edition]. | New York : Taylor & Francis, 2019. | Series: Routledge studies in seventeenth-century philosophy ; 18 | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2019005343 | ISBN 9780367077396 (hardback) Subjects: LCSH: Philosophy—Europe. | Philosophy, Modern—17th century. Classification: LCC B801 .E97 2019 | DDC 190.9/032—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019005343 ISBN: 978-0-367-07739-6 (hbk) ISBN: 978-0-429-02246-3 (ebk) Typeset in Sabon by Apex CoVantage, LLC Contents List of Table and Figure vii List of Abbreviations viii Acknowledgements x Introduction 1 ALBERTO VANZO AND PETER R. ANSTEY 1 Francis Bacon on Sophists, Poets and Other Forms of Self- Deceit (Or, What Can the Experimental Philosopher Learn from a Theoretically Informed History of Philosophy?) 8 DANA JALOBEANU 2 Robert Boyle and the Intelligibility of the Corpuscular Philosophy 36 PETER R. ANSTEY 3 Cavendish and Boyle on Colour and Experimental Philosophy 58 KEITH ALLEN 4 Appeals to Experience in Hobbes’ Science of Politics 81 TOM SORELL 5 Locke and the Experimental Philosophy of the Human Mind 101 PHILIPPE HAMOU 6 Newton’s Scaffolding: The Instrumental Roles of His Optical Hypotheses 125 KIRSTEN WALSH vi Contents 7 What (Else) Was Behind the Newtonian Rejection of ‘Hypotheses’? 158 CATHERINE WILSON 8 From Experimental Natural Philosophy to Natural Religion: Action and Contemplation in the Early Royal Society 184 ELLIOT ROSSITER 9 Experimental Philosophy and Religion in Seventeenth-Century Italy 204 ALBERTO VANZO 10 Early Modern Experimental Philosophy: A Non-Anglocentric Overview 229 DMITRI LEVITIN List of Contributors 292 Index 293 Table and Figure Table 6.1 Definitions of ‘theory’ and ‘hypothesis’ 129 Figure 6.1 Investigating the colours of thin films: Newton’s basic experimental setup 136 Abbreviations Agrippa De vanitate Of the Vanitie and Uncertaintie of Artes and Sciences, London, 1575. 1st edn 1530. Bacon OFB The Oxford Francis Bacon, 15 vols, eds. G. Rees et al., Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1996–. SEH The Works of Francis Bacon, 14 vols, eds. J. Spedding, R. L. Ellis and D. D. Heath, London: Longmans, 1861–1879. Boyle B The Works of Robert Boyle, 14 vols, eds. M. Hunter and E. B. Davis, London: Pickering and Chatto, 1999–2000. Cavendish Letters Philosophical Letters, London, 1664. Observations Observations upon Experimental Philosophy, ed. E. O’Neill, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001. 1st edn 1666. Descartes CSM The Philosophical Writings of Descartes, 2 vols, trans. J. Cottingham, R. Stoothoff and D. Murdoch, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985. Hobbes De cive On the Citizen, eds. R. Tuck and M. Silverthorne, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998. 1st edn 1642. Leviathan Leviathan, ed. R. Tuck, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991. 1st edn 1651. Abbreviations ix Locke Essay An Essay concerning Human Understanding, ed. P. H. Nidditch, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1975. 4th edn 1700. Newton Opticks Opticks: Or a Treatise of the Reflections, Refractions, Inflections & Colours of Light, ed. I. B. Cohen, New York: Dover. 4th edn 1730. Principia The Principia: Mathematical Principles of Natural Ph ilosophy, trans. I. B. Cohen and A. M. Whitman, Berkeley: University of California Press. 3rd edn 1726.