Abstract
In this paper I distinguish four methods of empirical inquiry in eighteenth century natural philosophy. In particular, I distinguish among what I call, (i) the mathematical-experimental method; (ii) the method of experimental series; (iii) the method of inspecting ideas; (iv) the method of natural history. While such a list is not exhaustive of the methods of inquiry available, even so, focusing on these four methods will help in diagnosing a set of debates within what has come to be known as ‘empiricism’; throughout the eighteenth century there was a methodological reaction against the hegemonic aspirations of mathematical natural philosophy associated with the authority of Newton.
In particular, I argue that the methods of inspecting ideas and natural history remained attractive to ‘empiricist’ thinkers with reservations about aspects of Newtonianism. Moreover, I show that the language of experimentalism meant different things to researchers with different attitudes toward Newton’s legacy. In order to illustrate and make more precise these claims, I embed my taxonomic treatment of the four methods within a narrative in which I primarily focus on Colin Maclaurin, Isaac Newton, David Hume, and Georges-Louis Leclerc de Buffon.
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Notes
- 1.
Charles Wolfe distinguishes usefully among three kinds of eighteenth century empiricism: (1). “A ‘Royal Society’, experimentalist empiricism, which may be the context in which an actual ‘philosophy of experiment’ emerges” (Boyle, Bacon); (2). “a moral/practical empiricism (Locke and Hume), in which themes such as anti-innatism … are in fact not epistemological, that is, not primarily reducible to concerns about the nature of knowledge or the cognitive states of the knower, but are rather motivated by embedded concerns such as anti-authoritarianism … and the desire to articulate a notion of toleration”; (3). “A medically motivated, ‘embodied’ empiricism, as found in such diverse figures as William Harvey …, Pierre Gassendi, Thomas Sydenham; in a different sense, La Mettrie, especially … within the tradition or trend of ‘medical Epicureanism’, as in Gassendi-Lamy-La Mettrie; and the Montpellier vitalists” (Wolfe 2010a, 335). My approach is motivated by different historiographical concerns than that that of Wolfe, but I am greatly indebted to his paper and to conversation with him over Mandeville, in particular.
- 2.
Recent trends in historiography have turned against deploying the empiricist/rationalist distinction in studying seventeenth and eighteenth philosophy. In this paper the distinction will do no serious philosophical work.
- 3.
See Petty (1690).
- 4.
- 5.
- 6.
Maclaurin (1748), 77.
- 7.
- 8.
Maclaurin (1748), 225.
- 9.
Maclaurin (1748), 98–99.
- 10.
During a lively facebook discussion (18 september 2012) Aaron Garrett and Dario Perinitti called my attention to Maclaurin’s correspondence with Crousaz, who also maintained a distinction between impressions and ideas. See Shank (2008), 160. But I see no reason to think that in this context Maclaurin has Crousaz in mind.
- 11.
See Maclaurin (1748), 103. The inward substratum is introduced in the context of discussion a hypothetical objection, and it is not entirely clear if Maclaurin accepts a substratum view. But he exhibits familiarity with Lockean views. I thank Peter Millican for discussion.
- 12.
Maclaurin (1748), 98.
- 13.
Maclaurin (1748), 100. Here there may be Lockean influence. But this, too, is not decisive—for on the very next page he is explicitly criticizing Berkeley; in his Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge, Berkeley has a tendency to conflate Locke and Newton on time (Berkeley 1734, § 98–111, 118–31).
- 14.
Maclaurin (1748), 224.
- 15.
Maclaurin (1748), 90–1.
- 16.
- 17.
Maclaurin (1748), 54.
- 18.
- 19.
While no one would mistake Huygens for a Newtonian, Wolff is an eclectic, who mixes all kinds of elements in his mathematical philosophy. To quote from the summary of a very useful (Dutch, alas) treatment, “Wolff’s scientific position turns out to be neither Cartesian, nor Newtonian” (Hakfoort 1982, 38).
- 20.
- 21.
In recent scholarship, George E. Smith has done most to illuminate the nature of this enterprise. See for a nice introduction, Smith (2008).
- 22.
Maclaurin (1748), 221.
- 23.
Ibid.
- 24.
Berkeley (1951).
- 25.
This objection may be discerned in Spinoza, but that need not be explored here.
- 26.
For recent work see Harper (2012).
- 27.
Newton (1999), 403–4 & 406.
- 28.
It turns out that through the three editions of the Principia, Newton shifted from a so-called geometric conception of mass (cf. “volume” in the definition) to a more dynamic conception. See, especially Biener and Smeenk (2012).
- 29.
- 30.
For nice recent treatment of the methodological similarities and differences between Principia and Optics, see Ducheyne (2012).
- 31.
Recall Maclaurin (1748, 221). See also Demeter (2012).
- 32.
Cohen (1956).
- 33.
’s Gravesande (1747), xv: describing Newton’s Opticks.
- 34.
- 35.
- 36.
See Feingold (2001). For recent criticism of Feingold, see Anstey (2005). Of course, the use of mathematics in natural philosophy was also traced back to Bacon’s writings; see Maclaurin (1748), who treats Bacon both as “founder of experimental philosophy” (59) as well as the source of the proper use of mathematical methods in natural philosophy (36). For recent scholarship on the role of Bacon in promoting mathematical natural philosophy, see Pastorino (2011), Jalobeanu (2013, and 2014).
- 37.
Buffon and Lyon (1976), 176.
- 38.
Newton (1999), Scholium to the definitions, 411.
- 39.
I am making no claim about direct influence. Having said that, there are, in fact, passages in Buffon that read very Humean: “when, after having determined the facts through repeated observations, when, after having established new truths through precise experiments, we wish to search out the reasons for these same occurrences, the causes of these effects, we find ourselves suddenly baffled, reduced to trying to deduce effects from more general effects, and obliged to admit that causes are always will be known to us, because our senses … can give us ideas only of effects and never of causes. Thus we must be content to call cause a general effect, and must forego hope of knowing anything beyond that. These general effects are for us the true laws of nature.” (Buffon and Lyon 1976, 175).
- 40.
The following paragraphs draw on joint work with Yoram Hazony (Hazony and Schliesser 2016).
- 41.
The most influential twentieth century argument is Smith (1941).
- 42.
I quote the treatise by paragraph number as supplied by Hume (2004); here Hume (2004), § 1.2.4.17. See also www.Davidhume.org
- 43.
“[T]he whole subject of mechanics is distinguished from geometry by the attribution of exactness to geometry and of anything less than exactness to mechanics. Yet the errors do not come from the art, but from those who practice the art. Anyone who works with less exactness is a more imperfect mechanic, and if anyone could work with the greatest exactness, he would be the most perfect mechanic of all.” (Newton 1999, 381–2).
- 44.
- 45.
Hume (2004), § 1.2.4.29–31.
- 46.
For a book-length treatment see Gallie (1989).
- 47.
Hume (2004), § 1.2.2.1.
- 48.
Hume (2004), § 1.3.2.4; see also § 1.3.6.16.
- 49.
The best treatment is Garrett (1997), chapter 2.
- 50.
Hume (2004), n12, SBN 638–639.
- 51.
As Andrew Janiak writes, “5. Clarke seems to endorse an instrumentalist interpretation of ‘gravitation’ as Newton discussed it especially in his fifth and final letter to Leibniz: see Clarke 5: sections 110–16, 118–23, and 124–30, in Leibniz (1931, 437, 439–40).”The reference is to Leibniz (1931); see Janiak (2014).
- 52.
- 53.
Hume (2004), introduction, § 7–8, and 10.
- 54.
Boehm (2013).
- 55.
Hume (2004), introduction, § 4.
- 56.
- 57.
I have followed the citations as provided by www.Davidhume.org: Hume (2007) E 4.1, SBN 25.
- 58.
Hume (2007), E 7.4, SBN 62.
- 59.
Hume (2007), E 8.13, SBN 87.
- 60.
Hume (2007), E 8.36, SBN 103.
- 61.
- 62.
It is, of course, not impossible that this was never meant as a prediction, but more akin to what I have elsewhere labeled “philosophic prophecy”; see Schliesser (2013).
- 63.
For a more thorough account of Buffon, see Hoquet (2010) as well as his paper in this volume.
- 64.
Buffon, “Initial Discourse”, in: Buffon and Lyon (1976), 178.
- 65.
The whole passage is instructive: “The sole means of constructing an instructive and natural system is to put together whatever is similar and to separate those things which differ. If the individual entities resemble each other exactly … such individuals will be of the same species … if, on the contrary, the differences exceed the similarities, such individuals are not even of the same class. This is the systematic order which ought to be followed in arranging the productions of nature.” (Buffon and Lyon 1976, 155).
- 66.
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I thank the editors of this volume, Charles Wolfe as well as a very hostile audience at ESHS in Barcelona for very useful, critical comments.
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Schliesser, E. (2018). Four Methods of Empirical Inquiry in the Aftermath of Newton’s Challenge. In: Bodenmann, S., Rey, AL. (eds) What Does it Mean to be an Empiricist?. Boston Studies in the Philosophy and History of Science, vol 331. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-69860-1_2
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