[9] November 16 - Mechanical philosophies
Presentation: Darrah + Ngan
Discussion leader: Pavel + Ngan
Assigned reading:
Robert Boyle, The Christian Virtuoso: Shewing, That by being addicted to Experimental Philosophy, a Man is rather Assisted, than Indisposed, to be a Good Christian (1690-91), The Works of Robert Boyle, M. Hunter and E. B. Davis, eds., vol. 11 (2000), 291-327. [The full text is included here, but it is OK if you do not read past p. 309. Boyle's English sounds archaic to our ears, so it will take you a little while to work through the text, but his reasoning is still frequently easier to appreciate than that of Descartes. An especially important term: "Artificer," meaning God considered as the Creator of the universe, but with connotations of artisan and craftsman.]
W. B. Ashworth, “Christianity and the Mechanistic Universe,” When Science and Christianity Meet, 61-84.
Further reading:
Margaret Osler, Divine Will and the Mechanical Philosophy: Gassendi and Descartes on Contingency and Necessity in the Created World (1994).
Saul Fisher, Pierre Gassendi's Philosophy and Science: Atomism for Empiricists (2005).
Marie Boas , "The Establishment of the Mechanical Philosophy," Osiris 10 (1952): 412-541.
Peter Harrison, The Bible, Protestantism and the Rise of Natural Sciences (1998).
Simon Schaffer, "Godly men and mechanical philosophers: Souls and spirits in Restoration natural philosophy," Science in Context 1 (1987): 55-85.
Margaret G. Cook, "Divine artifice and natural mechanism: Robert Boyle's mechanical philosophy of nature," Osiris 16 (2001): 133-150.
Harold J. Cook, The Young Descartes: Nobility, Rumor, and War (2018).
(Click on image for larger version.)