Robert Boyle's epistemology: The interaction between scientific and religious knowledge¹

A version of this paper was given in March 1991, at the annual International Conference for Philosophy of Science in Dubrovnik; a later version was given at a joint session of the Canadian Society for the History and Philosophy of Science and the Canadian Society for the Study of European Ideas in May 1991. I am grateful to members of the audience on both occasions for helpful suggestions. I have also benefited from a number of conversations with Margaret Osier on Boyleana and related 17th century matters. All workers on the Boyle manuscripts know how helpful the Librarian and staff of the Royal Society Library are, and I should like to thank them once again for that help, as well as thanking the Royal Society for permission to quote from the Boyle Letters and the Boyle Papers.

References to the Royal Society's Boyle Papers (BP) are given by volume and page or folio as appropriate, with recto and verso indicated as necessary. In transcriptions from the Boyle Papers I have indicated Boyle's deletions by brackets ([,]), insertions by pointed brackets (<,>), conjectured readings and my insertion of obvious omissions by braces ({,}), and catch words by slashes (/). Since we do not yet have a definitive edition of Boyle: references to his works are given by chapter, section, etc, as appropriate, followed by the volume and page in Thomas Birch's 1772 edition of The Works (6 vols, London, 1772; reprinted Hildesheim: Georg Olms, 1966).

Abstract

Boyle distinguished clearly between the areas which we would call scientific and theological. However, he felt that they overlapped seamlessly, and that the truths we discovered (or which were revealed to us) in one of these areas would be relevant to us in the other. In this paper I outline and discuss Boyle's views on the limitations of human knowing, Boyle's arguments in favour of accepting the revelations of the Christian faith, and his views on the kind of epistomological standing that scientific knowledge claims have. Given this background I then consider the relation between hypotheses, theories and facts in Boyle's work, and consider a particular case, that of Boyle's Law, as an exemplification of the claims made in the rest of the paper.

Notes

A version of this paper was given in March 1991, at the annual International Conference for Philosophy of Science in Dubrovnik; a later version was given at a joint session of the Canadian Society for the History and Philosophy of Science and the Canadian Society for the Study of European Ideas in May 1991. I am grateful to members of the audience on both occasions for helpful suggestions. I have also benefited from a number of conversations with Margaret Osier on Boyleana and related 17th century matters. All workers on the Boyle manuscripts know how helpful the Librarian and staff of the Royal Society Library are, and I should like to thank them once again for that help, as well as thanking the Royal Society for permission to quote from the Boyle Letters and the Boyle Papers.

References to the Royal Society's Boyle Papers (BP) are given by volume and page or folio as appropriate, with recto and verso indicated as necessary. In transcriptions from the Boyle Papers I have indicated Boyle's deletions by brackets ([,]), insertions by pointed brackets (<,>), conjectured readings and my insertion of obvious omissions by braces ({,}), and catch words by slashes (/). Since we do not yet have a definitive edition of Boyle: references to his works are given by chapter, section, etc, as appropriate, followed by the volume and page in Thomas Birch's 1772 edition of The Works (6 vols, London, 1772; reprinted Hildesheim: Georg Olms, 1966).