Philosophy, corpuscular

Clericuzio, Antonio. A redefinition of Boyle s chemistry and corpuscular philosophy. Ann Sci 47 (1990) 561-589. 

Newman, William Royall. The alchemical sources of Robert Boyle s corpuscular philosophy. Ann Sci 53, no. 6 (Nov 1996) 567-585. 

Our insights into Boyles chemical attitudes have been recently enlarged by the following careful studies Antonio Clericuzio, A Redefinition of Boyle s Chemistry and Corpuscular Philosophy, Ann. Sci. 47 (1990) 561-589 and Michael Hunter, ed. Robert Boyle Reconsidered (Cambridge New York Cambridge University Press, 1994), 10. 

The law at which we have arrived (which is merely a description of the appearances, and involves, I believe, nothing hypothetic), is certainly not provided for in the corpuscular philosophy of the day, and is altogether so extraordinary, that I may be excused for not speculating further upon its cause, till its various bearings, and certain collateral subjects, be fully investigated. 

Such is the explanation of Graham s law from the viewpoint of corpuscular philosophy from it follows that this law should be valid for a capillary of any width on the condition that the pressure along the capillary is constant. 

B oyle, R., Ofthe Reconcileableness of Specific Medicines to the Corpuscular Philosophy. Samuel Smith, London, 1685, pp. 72-75. 

S. Clucas, The infinite variety of forms and magnitudes 16th and 17" -cen-tury English corpuscular philosophy and Aristotelian theories of matter and form , Early Sci. Med., 1997, 2, 251-271. 

His major contributions were twofold. First, he convincingly championed chemistry as an important part of the new natural philosophy of the seventeenth century. More precisely, Boyle argued that chemical philosophy and corpuscular philosophy provided important support for one another. We will soon consider the nature of corpuscular philosophy. For now, it is enough to note that it offered mechanical explanations, based on the behavior of corpuscles. These corpuscles might be aggregations, groups, or clumps of atoms, which were in principle divisible. Alternatively, they might simply be individual atoms, which by definition were indivisible. Boyle made chemistry compatible with the new, fashionable, and dominant kind of scientific explanation. His second major contribution, partly borrowed from Starkey, was the development of an experimental metbod m chemistry that made it fit into the new... 

Boyle came to be an adherent of corpuscular philosophy. Aristotle s philosophy, with its four terrestrial elements occupying a plenum, was incompatible with a doctrine of atoms and the void, or of a universal matter. Boyle subjected Aristotle s theories, as far as they applied to chemistry, to serious criticism. He did the same to Paracelsus s theories, which were based upon three elements, the triaprima. Boyle s criticisms were both rational and experimental in character. They did not prevent him from pursuing alchemy as part of his chemistry. It is this unique combination of what were later separated into the twin pursuits of chemistry and alchemy, to the latter s disadvantage,... 

Robert Boyle had made chemistry part of the new and eminently respectable natural philosophy based on corpuscular philosophy. His explanations for... 

Boyle, Some Specimens of an Attempt to Make Chymical Experiments Useful to Illustrate the Notions of the Corpuscular Philosophy, Works, volume 1, 354-359. 

Thackray has argued that Newton s most fundamental contribution to the development of matter theory was his replacement of the sort of corpuscular philosophy favored by, say Boyle, with a view of nature based on particles and the forces in between them. Thackray. (1970). Atoms and Powers 26. 

Newman, W.R. 1996). Boyle s Debt to Corpuscular Alchemy the Alchemical Sources of Robert Boyle s Corpuscular Philosophy. <2/f of Science, /y, 567-585. 

A Redefinition of Boyle s Chemistry and Corpuscular Philosophy, Annals of Science 47 561-589. 

William R. Newman, Experimental Corpuscular Theory in Aristotelian Alchemy From Geber to Sennert, in Late Medieval and Early Modern Corpuscular Matter Theory, ed. Christoph Luthy, John E. Murdoch, and William R. Newman (Leiden E. J. Brill, 2001), 291—329. See also Newman, The Alchemical Sources of Robert Boyle s Corpuscular Philosophy, Annals of Science 53 (1996), 567-585. 

---