Abstract
Boyle was a most realistic teacher. No scientist in history, not even Newton or Einstein, gained so much respect during his lifetime as the modest Boyle. His authority was unquestioned; as one who aroused enthusiasm, he exceeded Newton, Einstein and Bohr. It is characteristic of him that under doctor’s orders, and in order to be able to publish his works regularly, he put a board in the front of his house stating which morning and afternoon in the week he did not receive visitors (Boyle et al., Works, 2000, 14, 363; Maddison, 9, 1951, 1–35 and 11, 1954, 38–53). Praises and tributes paid to him by contemporaries, even if greatly exaggerated, are most remarkable. His works were republished for about a century. A Latin edition and an epitomized English edition of his works appeared soon after his death and two English editions of his works followed two English and two Latin editions of his philosophical works in the eighteenth century.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
The complete editions of Boyle’s Works were subsidized by special benevolent funds (Hunter 1994, 2).
- 2.
Disraeli defended Stubbe gallantly (Calamities and Quarrels, “The Royal Society”) by being unnecessarily harsh to Boyle, whose criticism of both Glanvill and Stubbe clearly displays his impartiality.
- 3.
My “Who Discovered Boyle’s Law?”, 1977, republished in (Agassi 2008), still awaits the establishment’s open response to my challenges. Alas, there is no rule that prevents them from raising walls of silence when they cannot answer a challenge to their own satisfaction and will not yield either.
- 4.
The popularity of Bacon’s doctrine of prejudice can be seen from it use in science fiction. The best example I know is the terrific 1957 The Black Cloud of astronomer Fred Hoyle: at the very end of the story, just before departing, the black cloud informs humanity of some great ideas; thoughtlessly, the choice of target is a great scientist who consequently goes mad rather than the innocent gardener who would absorb the new ideas effortlessly.
- 5.
The only explanation for the rise of interest in Boyle is that of Westfall (1986): the impact of the studies of Burtt and of Koyré, as well as the founding of the Journal for the History of Ideas raised interest in the scientific revolution. My memory of the time is vivid. The main reason was the rise of professional history of science that is due to the expansion of the universities then and the success of the Soviet space program to beat that of the USA. Also Conant’s program in Harvard had something to do with that. As to the Journal for the History of Ideas, its founder, P. P. Wiener told me it was his response to the view of the import of metaphysics that he learned from Émile Meyerson and his inability to publish on metaphysics in the relevant press as it suffered from positivist bias.
- 6.
Porter said, in some sense scientific revolutions possibly do occur. He said, historians who find it useful to speak of scientific revolutions should feel free to do so.
- 7.
Contextualism is not new. To take the simplest example, Macaulay observed early in the nineteenth century that Restoration England favored any development that took intellectuals away from politics and that this explains why the Society for Improving Natural Knowledge received the Royal Charter that boosted research.
- 8.
I do not count Richard Boulton’s 1715 life of Boyle. It is merely a (boring) dissertation on Boyle’s theology with a few pages in its opening and in its conclusion. That conclusion is largely borrowed from Bishop Burnett’s funereal tribute. The only new item in this biography is its surprising allegation that Boyle received his education in the University of Leiden (Boulton 1715, 6–7).
- 9.
“Maddison is wholly explicit about his purpose. In the preface, he renounces any attempt to analyze the content of Boyle’s work or to discuss his significance in the history of science.”
- 10.
Whenever an experience becomes repeatable it ceases to be viewed as miraculous or enchanted and it becomes scientific by definition that Boyle instituted. It is odd that he found it hard to abide by.
- 11.
Although nowadays every researcher knows that reproducibility as a condition for the scientific status of an observation report, almost all methodologists—with the exception of Karl Popper and Mario Bunge—overlook it and discuss the scientific status of generalizations instead. Here let me overlook this sad fact.
- 12.
Steven Shapin praises Boyle without reference to his opinions or research (Shapin 1994)—as one who won trust as a researcher and as a gentleman. His credibility, Shapin seems to suggest, rendered all natural science credible. What Shapin has systematically overlooked is Boyle’s having acquired and maintained his credibility the hard way. For, a major factor here was methodological and compromise about methods. This conflicts with Shapin’s view.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2013 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Agassi, J. (2013). Boyle in the Eyes of Posterity. In: The Very Idea of Modern Science. Boston Studies in the Philosophy and History of Science, vol 298. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-5351-8_13
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-5351-8_13
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht
Print ISBN: 978-94-007-5350-1
Online ISBN: 978-94-007-5351-8
eBook Packages: Humanities, Social Sciences and LawPhilosophy and Religion (R0)