The Philosophy of Robert Boyle

Anstey, Peter R.

doi:10.4324/9780203464779

Cited by 45 publications

(11 citation statements)

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“…for what is wont to be taught us of qualities in the Schools is so slight and ill-grounded that it may be doubted whether they have not rather obscured than illustrated the things they should have explicated" (Origins of Forms and Qualities, Preface, p. 13, Stewart [1991]; cf. Anstey [2000]). …”

Section: Perspectives On Science 507mentioning

confidence: 93%

Gassendi's Atomist Account of Generation and Heredity in Plants and Animals

Fisher

2003

Perspectives on Science

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In his accounts of plant and animal generation Pierre Gassendi offers a mechanist story of how organisms create offspring to whom they pass on their traits. Development of the new organism is directed by a material "soul" or animula bearing ontogenetic information. Where reproduction is sexual, two sets of material semina and corresponding animulae meet and jointly determine the division, differentiation, and development of matter in the new organism. The determination of inherited traits requires a means of combining or choosing among each parent's contributions, and towards this end, Gassendi outlines the nature of competition and dominance among animulae. Unlike his fellow mechanists, Gassendi can extend his mechanism to his heredity account, because his proposed vehicle for ontogenetic transmission is material. That proposal in turn relies on his atomist hypothesis. The relative uniformity of atoms allows animulae to operate equivalently across different modes of generation, spontaneous or otherwise. Further, his molecular model of atomic structures allows a material means of storing ontogenetic information received from the souls of parent organisms. These accounts-awed and sketchy-unsurprisingly fail to specify how hereditary information might be borne physically, and in any case do not meet Gassendi's own empiricist standards. Yet this generation theory with pretensions to a materialist mechanism establishes Gassendi's rm commitment to a unity of the sciences through an atomist ontology that underlies all physical phenomena, including the organic.

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Section: Perspectives On Science 507mentioning

confidence: 93%

Gassendi's Atomist Account of Generation and Heredity in Plants and Animals

Fisher

2003

Perspectives on Science

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“…Such a position is similar in important respects to the 'nomic occasionalism' that Peter Anstey finds in the work of Robert Boyle. See, for instance, Anstey's claim that according to Boyle, 'the power of matter in impacts' is an efficient cause that 'accounts for the fact of the transference of motion,' whereas the institution of the laws accounts 'for the various properties of that motion'; Anstey (2000: 172; see also 198). FONTENELLE'S OBJECTIONS TO MALEBRANCHE 299 particular account of the production of motion in this text starts from the assumption that God wills to move bodies in accord with a law that dictates that unimpeded motion is rectilinear.…”

Section: Malebranchean Responsesmentioning

confidence: 95%

Occasionalism and mechanism: Fontenelle's objections to malebranche

Schmaltz

2008

British Journal for the History of Philosophy

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“…1 1 On Locke's theory of color, see, among others, Jackson 1929; Curley 1972; Alexander 1976/77; Rickless 1997; Stuart 2003; Jacovides 2007. On Boyle's, see Curley 1972; Keating 1993; Anstey 2000, Chapter 4. On Descartes’, see Cottingham 1989/90; Nolan Forthcoming.…”

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confidence: 99%

Leibniz on the Metaphysics of Color

Puryear

2011

Philos Phenomenol Research

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Drawing on remarks scattered through his writings, I argue that Leibniz has a highly distinctive and interesting theory of color. The central feature of the theory is the way in which it combines a nuanced subjectivism about color with a reductive approach of a sort usually associated with objectivist theories of color. After reconstructing Leibniz's theory and calling attention to some of its most notable attractions, I turn to the apparent incompatibility of its subjective and reductive components. I argue that this apparent tension vanishes in light of his rejection of a widely accepted doctrine concerning the nature of bodies and their geometrical qualities.

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The Philosophy of Robert Boyle

Cited by 45 publications

References 0 publications

Gassendi's Atomist Account of Generation and Heredity in Plants and Animals

Gassendi's Atomist Account of Generation and Heredity in Plants and Animals

Occasionalism and mechanism: Fontenelle's objections to malebranche

Leibniz on the Metaphysics of Color

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