A study of the history of the atomic theory of matter between the time of Democritus and that of Newton. The classical atomic theory, we are told, consisted of four central doctrines: a firm commitment to indivisible units of matter; a belief in the reality of the vacuum; a reductionist conception of forms and qualities and a mechanistic account of natural agency. The work provides a critical account of the arguments used for and against these four theses during three time-periods: (...) Antiquity, the Middle Ages and the 17th century. Atomism was a minority position in Antiquity, rejected by most natural philosophers on the strength of Aristotelian objections. But Aristotle's own disciples gradually took his system apart in the Middle Ages, thus developing - albeit in a piecemeal manner - positions strikingly akin in some respects to classical atomism. So when Gassendi and others sought to revive atomism in the 17th century, the way was already prepared for them. This study is the first to emphasise the continuity of this process and the debt owed by the 17th-century moderns to the medieval critique of Aristotle. (shrink)

Summary Robert Boyle did not subordinate chemistry to mechanical philosophy. He was in fact reluctant to explain chemical phenomena by having recourse to the mechanical properties of particles. For him chemistry provided a primary way of penetrating into nature. In his chemical works he employed corpuscles endowed with chemical properties as his explanans. Boyle's chemistry was corpuscular, rather than mechanical. As Boyle's views of seminal principles show, his corpuscular philosophy cannot be described as a purely mechanical theory of matter. Boyle's (...) classification of corpuscles allowed him to connect his corpuscular views of matter with chemistry. Boyle did not rule out the possibility of a classification of chemical substances based on their properties: his aim was to reform the received classification. (shrink)

The ArgumentThis paper is a study of the role of language in scientific activity. It recommends that language be viewed as a community's means of patterning its affairs. Language represents where the boundaries of the community are and who is entitled to speak within it, and it displays the structures of authority in the community. Moreover, language precipitates the community's view of what the world is like, such that linguistic usages can be taken as referring to that world. Thus, language (...) connects on the one side to a community's practical life, and, on the other, to the reality on which it “reports.”The example treated is Robert Boyle's view of the language proper for experimental practice, and his arguments against the value and legitimacy of mathematical representations within the experimental community. Boyle argued that the use of mathematics was inappropriate because (i) it would restrict the number of potential participants; (ii) it would give rise to unwarranted expectations of the certainty and accuracy to be expected of real physical inquiries; (iii) it would suggest views of natural law and God's relations with the natural world which were incorrect and possibly dangerous; and because (iv) the world upon which the experimentalist operated was not such as was represented by mathematical idealizations. I try to establish that decision about the appropriate language for the experimental community was a moral choice. (shrink)