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Notes
1 See Gaukroger, ‘Unity of Natural Philosophy’, for the early-modern debate over the sense of scientia.
2 Bacon, Oxford Francis Bacon, vol. 11 (NO, II.3), 65. Pérez-Ramos, Bacon's Idea of Science, identifies what I designate ‘operationalism’ with a ‘maker's knowledge tradition’, first articulated by Vico but already present in many seventeenth-century thinkers. Pérez-Ramos's thesis will be critically examined in more detail in what follows.
3 See Garber, ‘Philosophia, Historia, Mathematica’.
4 Bacon, Works of Francis Bacon, vol. 3 (Cog. & Vis.), 589–620.
5 Bacon, Oxford Francis Bacon, vol. 11 (NO, I.95), 153.
6 Corneanu and Vermeir, ‘Idols’; Giglioni, ‘Mastering’; Jalobeanu, ‘Early Modern Baconians’; etc.
7 See e.g. Jalobeanu, ‘Core Experiments’. Jalobeanu has shown that what sometimes appears to be a disorganized morass of supplementary material in many cases is a rigorously structured record of deliberately organized experimental practice.
8 There is an extensive literature on Spinoza in relation to early-modern physical theory, Cartesian mechanics, and the history of scientific methodology, but treatments of Spinoza and experimental philosophy are relatively rare. Most are connected directly to the Spinoza/Oldenburg/Boyle conversation discussed here. For the broadest consideration, see Gabbey, ‘Spinoza's Natural Science’. Work dealing with the Boyle connection includes Buyse, ‘Spinoza, Boyle, Galileo’; Daudin, ‘Spinoza et la science’; Duffy, ‘Science and Philosophy’; Guillemeau and Ramond, ‘Conception de l'expérience’; Hall and Hall, ‘Philosophy and Natural Philosophy’; Jaquet, Expressions de la puissance, 179–194; Macherey, ‘Spinoza, lecteur de Boyle’; and Yakira, ‘Boyle et Spinoza’. Also interesting are Von Duuglas-Ittu's somewhat fragmentary and informal but extensive and rigorous blog entries on Spinoza's lens-grinding practices in relation to his optical experiments and metaphysics, gathered at ‘Spinoza's Foci’.
9 Pérez-Ramos, Bacon's Idea of Science, 48.
10 Pérez-Ramos, ‘Bacon's Forms’, 115.
11 Pérez-Ramos, Bacon's Idea of Science, 150.
12 Ibid., 48, 54, 56, and 61–62.
13 Ibid., 54–62 and 150–196.
14 Rossi, Magic to Science, esp. 1–35; Philosophy, Technology, and the Arts, 146–174; ‘Bacon's Idea of Science’, 38 (though here he also points out that Pérez-Ramos had misquoted his earlier work). Cf. Weeks, ‘Role of Mechanics’, 136–137, 173–174 and 190–191. Both Rossi and Pérez-Ramos are criticized by Weeks for their reliance on the maker's-knowledge claim since, she holds, it conflates a series of distinct ways in which operational knowing works at different levels of Baconian inquiry. The maker's-knowledge thesis blurs the functions of mechanical history, experientia literata and what Weeks dubs ‘philosophical mechanics’ (i.e., the descent down the scala intellectus from the generation of an axiom to its experimental refinement). Essentially, Weeks charges that maker's-knowledge language minimizes the extent to which Bacon's intermediate works play a role in the discovery of forms, rather than simply standing as their operational products.
15 Funkenstein, Theology and the Scientific Imagination, 178 and 297–299. Funkenstein associates the ‘ergetic’ with the sense of ergon denoting ‘work’, ‘deed’ or ‘what is made’ rather than the Aristotelian inflection of the term toward ‘function’ or the ‘being at work’ of a substance. He insists that the ‘ergetic ideal’ is fundamentally opposed to the contemplative. Compare, however, Bacon's insistence on the inseparability of speculation and operation: ‘that which in thought [contemplatione] is equivalent to a cause, is in operation equivalent to a rule’; or his identification of the ‘prescriptions’ for true and perfect action and contemplation as amounting to ‘the same thing […] for that which is most useful in operating, is most true in knowing.’ Bacon, Oxford Francis Bacon, vol. 11 (NO, I.3 and II.4), 65 and 205.
16 Kusukawa, ‘Bacon's Classification’, 56–57.
17 Pérez-Ramos, ‘Bacon's Forms’, passim.
18 Pérez-Ramos, Bacon's Idea of Science, 194–195; Funkenstein, Theology and the Scientific Imagination, 297–298.
19 Gaukroger, Bacon and the Transformation, 140–141 and 155–158.
20 Ibid., 158–159.
21 For the account of the axiomatic specificity of geometry and politics as a priori sciences, see Hobbes, Opera philosophica, vol. 1 (De corpore, I.vi.7 and 12–13), 65–66 and 71–73; Ibid., vol. 2 (De homine, x.4–6), 92–94. Funkenstein explores Hobbes's account of the relationship between truth and ‘the constructible’ in Theology and the Scientific Imagination, 81 and 327–338. Craig develops a powerful reading of Hobbes's constructivist political theory in relationship to ergetic principles in his dissertation, ‘Axiomatic Politics’.
22 Gaukroger, Bacon and the Transformation, 159.
23 Gaukroger's point about certainty runs into difficulty with respect to Bacon's characterization of ‘true and perfect’ precepts for operation and the discovery of form, which include being ‘certain’ along with being unrestricted and disposed for action. Though the certainty Bacon calls for is clearly neither perfect demonstrability in the Aristotelian sense, nor axiomatic determinability in the Hobbesian, it does play a central role in both formal knowing and operational power. Bacon, Oxford Francis Bacon, vol. 11 (NO, II.4), 205.
24 Gaukroger, ‘Vico and Maker's Knowledge’, 40.
25 Ibid., 40–43.
26 It is true that Pérez-Ramos does occasionally make overly broad statements that might lead to this interpretation, such as the claim that ‘to know, in brief, means to make’, but these are not representative of the more nuanced approach he takes in the book as a whole. Pérez-Ramos, Bacon's Idea of Science, 282. Kennington's harsh review largely takes Pérez-Ramos's simpler claims to be articulations of the core interpretive idea. Kennington, review of Pérez-Ramos, 414–415.
27 Bacon, Oxford Francis Bacon, vol. 11 (NO, I.24), 73. On judgment in Bacon, see Jaquet, ‘Le problème du jugement’.
28 Bacon, Oxford Francis Bacon, vol. 11 (NO, II.1–2), 201–202.
29 Ibid. (NO, II.1), 201.
30 Ibid. (NO, II.17), 255–7.
31 Pérez-Ramos, ‘Bacon's Forms’, 107; Joy, ‘Scientific Explanation’, 85. Also see Pérez-Ramos, Bacon's Idea of Science, 106–114. On the history of ‘laws of nature’ and the Cartesian origins of their construal in terms of structural necessity, see Henry, ‘Metaphysics and the Origins’.
32 Gaukroger, Bacon and the Transformation, 140–141.
33 Bacon, Oxford Francis Bacon, vol. 11 (NO, II.1), 201.
34 Ibid. (NO, II.1), 201. On latent process and latent schema, see Ibid. (NO, II.1), 205–213.
35 Against the background of the classical Aristotelian distinction between artifacts and natural substances, many scholars have rightly hesitated to attribute a naturalism to Bacon, given his emphasis on the operative production of ‘works’. Others are willing to use the label in a general sense (e.g., Zagorin, Francis Bacon, 62, 73, 108 and 115). For an account sensitive to the nuances of Bacon's critique of various ancient and Renaissance naturalisms, see ‘The Refutation of Philosophies’ chapter in Rossi, From Magic to Science, esp. 51–59. Given Spinoza's clear commitment to an ethical and political naturalism in addition to his ontological stance, the attribution is far more widespread. It so usual, in fact, that it has pervaded Spinoza scholarship since the late nineteenth century (e.g., Nourisson's Citation1886 Spinoza et le naturalisme contemporain and, much more recently, Macherey's ‘Spinoza, la fin de l'histoire’, or indeed, the entire line of French Spinoza scholarship with roots in the work of Matheron). For a set of recent essays exploring and problematizing this attribution, see those collected by Charles Ramond in Spinoza: Nature, Naturalisme, Naturation, especially Moreau and Ramond, ‘Le ‘naturalisme’ de Spinoza’; Guillemeau, ‘Le retour au naturalisme’; and Ramond, ‘Nature Naturante, Nature Naturée’. For a consideration of Spinoza in relation to the problem of early-modern philosophical naturalism more generally, see Ramond, Spinoza et la pensée moderne, 79–110.
36 Spinoza's most explicit engagement with and critique of Bacon's Novum organum can be found in his first letter to Oldenburg. Spinoza, Collected Works (Ep. 2), 164–168. Jaquet treats this in the ‘Trois erreurs de Bacon’ chapter of Expressions de la puissance, 179–194.
37 The Spinoza/Oldenburg/Boyle letters relevant to this essay are Ep. 5–7, 11, 13–14 and 16. Later letters connected to Boyle are exchanged, but most concern the problem of miracles. Spinoza, Collected Works, 172–190, 197–200, 207–215 and 216–218. For an account of the geographic, institutional, and epistolary contexts of the correspondence, see Buyse, ‘Spinoza, Boyle, Galileo’, 45–49.
38 Hall and Hall, ‘Philosophy and Natural Philosophy’, 242–243. Also see Daudin, ‘Spinoza et la science expérimentale’.
39 See especially Duffy, ‘Science and Philosophy’; Guillemeau and Ramond, ‘Conception de l'expérience’; Macherey, ‘Spinoza, lecteur de Boyle’; and Yakira, ‘Boyle et Spinoza’. Cf. Jaquet, Expressions de la puissance, 179–194.
40 The implications of this position have been explored at length by Anstey, Philosophy of Robert Boyle. Also see Sargent, The Diffident Naturalist.
41 See Chalmers, ‘Lack of Excellency’. For a radically different view, compare Anstey in Philosophy of Robert Boyle and ‘Boyle and the Heuristic Value of Mechanism’, which maintain that Boyle's experimental and philosophical works are inextricably linked. In ‘Boyle on Science’, Pyle also critiques Chalmers. Chalmers replies to both Anstey and Pyle in ‘Experiment Versus Mechanical Philosophy’.
42 Boyle's Certain Physiological Essays is located in Works of Robert Boyle, vol. 2, 36–204. ‘Some Specimens’ occupies ibid., 84–204. ‘A Physico-Chymical Essay’ is located at ibid., 94–114. Origin of Forms is in ibid., vol. 5, 282–492. Spinoza is actually reading the Latin translation commissioned by Boyle, Tentamina quaedam physiologica (1661).
43 Boyle, Works of Robert Boyle, vol. 5, 325.
44 Ibid., 335; Aristotle, Metaphysics V.30, 1025a.30–34; Aquinas, Summa theologicae, Ia, q3, a6, sed contra and IIa, q2, a6, sed contra. Aristotle's essential accidents are those properties usually or necessarily associated with or demonstrated through a subject, without belonging to its essence, definition or form: in Aristotle's example, the angles of a triangle being equal to two right angles; for Aquinas, a human being's capability for laughter or delight. Essential accidents differ from accidents in the more general sense, which occur for a subject in virtue of some other thing or event: in Aristotle, famously, discovering treasure while digging a hole for another purpose, or finding oneself stranded on an island due to a storm or pirate attack. As Polansky has demonstrated, when specifically conceived in terms of natural science, essential accidents must be connected to the whole of a living being and not just its essence, so their demonstration must derive from principles of matter as well as form. Polansky, Aristotle's ‘De anima’, 40n14. Boyle pushes this notion to its logical extreme: in natural science, form is nothing but a concatenation of properties that may be demonstrated with respect to some body. For a broader discussion of accidents in the Baconian and post-Baconian early-modern English context, see Witmore, Culture of Accidents, esp. 111–129.
45 Spinoza, Collected Works (Ep. 6), 173–188. Rather than insist, as he soon would in Origin of Forms, that the observables produced by his experiments do allow him to define the form of niter, Boyle replies via Oldenburg that his aim in Certain Physiological Essays was only to demonstrate the insufficiency of the Scholastic doctrine of substantial forms. Ibid. (Ep. 11), 197.
46 Ibid. (Ep. 13), 208.
47 Aristotle, Posterior Analytics, I.2, 70b17–32.
48 Spinoza, Collected Works (PPC, IIA2), 264–265.
49 Ibid. (E, IP10CS), 455.
50 Ibid. (E, ID5 and ID3), 409 and 408.
51 Ibid. (E, IID2), 447.
52 Ibid. (E, IIIP7), 499.
53 Ibid. (E, IIP13S–IIP14), 457–463.
54 Ibid. (E, VP28–29), 609–610.
55 Bacon, Oxford Francis Bacon, vol. 11 (NO, II.4), 201.
56 As an anonymous IHR referee pointed out, this association of the ‘departure’ of form with the ‘destruction’ of the informed body shared by Bacon and Spinoza may be an inheritance from Aristotle (though not from Scholastics who argued for the separability of form). Consider its congruence with the wild De anima analogy from the end of the activity of the soul of an organism: ‘Suppose that the eye were an animal – sight would have been its soul, for sight is the substance of the eye which corresponds to the account, the eye being merely the matter of seeing; when seeing is removed the eye is no longer an eye, except in name – no more than the eye of a statue or of a painted figure.’ Aristotle, De anima, II.1, 412b.20–24. See Spinoza, Collected Works (E, IVP39S), 569–570 for Spinoza's account of death as the replacement of one form with another, such that a body may die without becoming a corpse.
57 Spinoza, Collected Works (Ep. 6), 182. Noting that Spinoza seems to use comprobare and confirmare with distinct senses in the correspondence (the former as ‘to make more probable’ and the latter as ‘to make certain’), Curley suggests that the disagreement over the capacity of experiments to produce scientia may stem from the equivocal use of these terms. See Curley's discursive ‘Glossary-Index’ in Spinoza, Collected Works, 630–631.
58 Spinoza, Collected Works (Ep. 2), 167. Given the extent to which Spinoza is influenced by Hobbes early in his career, it should be unsurprising that this position echoes Hobbes's own response to Boyle. The Dialogus physicus (1661) was written in response to Boyle's New Experiments Physico-Mechanical (1660), an exchange classically analyzed to great effect by Shapin and Schaffer in Leviathan and the Air-Pump. It is possible, but very unlikely, that Spinoza could have read Hobbes's Dialogus, as it was printed in London less than 7 months before Spinoza's letter and there are no direct indications of his familiarity with it. Hobbes's text does not appear in the inventory of Spinoza's library (yet neither does the Novum organum, which he certainly read, given his paraphrases and nearly direct quotations from it in his first letter to Oldenburg). Hobbes, Opera philosophica, vol. 4 (Dialogus physicus), 233–296; Van Rooijen, Bibliothèque de Spinoza.
59 I take this to have been definitively demonstrated by Garrett, following Gueroult. Garrett, Meaning in Spinoza's Method, especially 144–180. Gueroult, Spinoza, passim, but for an extremely concise and powerful discussion, see vol. 2, 483–485. For an alternative view, see Parkinson, ‘Definition, Essence, and Understanding’.
60 There is an enormous literature on intuition in Spinoza. For a good account in relation to the question in this essay, see Garrett, ‘Scientia Intuitiva’ and Carr, ‘Spinoza's Distinction’.
61 This terminology can be found throughout Certain Physiological Essays and Origin of Forms. Works of Robert Boyle, vol. 2 (Certain Physiological Essays), 25, 49, 56, etc.; ibid., vol. 5 (Origin of Forms), 312, 356, 361, etc.
62 Spinoza, Collected Works (E, IIP40S2), 478. The Dutch translation of the Ethica was posthumously published simultaneously with the Latin, with no definitive manuscript surviving as the source for either. Where the Latin has ‘to adequate knowledge of the essence of things’ (ad adaequatam cognitionem essentiae rerum) the Dutch has ‘to adequate knowledge of the formal essence of things’ (d’evenmatige kennis van de vormelijke wezentheit der dingen) (my emphases). That this ought to lead to an emendation of the Latin is not supported by the recently discovered alternative Latin manuscript copy (not the basis for either published version; Spinoza, Vatican Manuscript, 155). Nevertheless, given the language of essentia formalis Spinoza uses earlier in the sentence and throughout the early propositions of Part II, the sense of this reading remains plausible. See, for example, Spinoza, Collected Works (E, IIP8), 452–453.
63 Spinoza, Collected Works (E, IIP40S2), 478.
64 Garrett does attribute a form of ‘maker's knowledge’ to Spinoza, but connects it to the genetic structure of Spinoza's definitions, not Spinoza's operationalism. With respect to Bacon, he recognizes the potential difficulties Gaukroger points out about Pérez-Ramos's position, but suggests that whether or not this is actually what Bacon had in mind, philosophers like Spinoza operating in the wake of Hobbes would have been likely to read Bacon that way. Garrett, Meaning in Spinoza's Method, 83, 83n27 and 219n47.
65 See, for example, Spinoza, Collected Works (E, ID7, IP26, IP27, IP28, IP29, IP32, IP33, IIP30, IIP31, IVPraef, IV29 and VP6), 409, 431–436, 471–472, 546, 560 and 599; Spinoza, Complete Works (TP, 2.2, 2.3, 2.7 and 2.8), 683–685.
66 Spinoza, Collected Works (E, IIP7–13S), 451–458.
67 Ibid. (E, IIP17–31), 462–472. Morfino's alternative explanation is offered in terms of a theory of constitutive relationality. I see no disjunction between a dynamic, plenist physical theory and the ontology of relations he proposes. Morfino, ‘Spinoza: An Ontology of Relations?’
68 Spinoza, Collected Works (E, IIP29C), 471. Manning points out that Spinoza's characterization of imaginative knowledge as experientia vaga is borrowed directly from the Novum organum I.100. Manning, ‘Spinoza's Physical Theory’. For a contrast to Bacon's account of imagination, see Jaquet, ‘Le rôle de l'imagination’.
69 Spinoza, Collected Works (E, IIP29S), 471.
70 Ibid. (E, IIP37–39), 474–475.
71 On epistemological shifts in kind, see Tosel, ‘Transitions éthiques’.
72 Spinoza, Collected Works (E, IIP40S2), 478.
73 Ibid. (E, ID4 and IIP1–2), 408 and 448–449.
74 Spinoza usually cites IA4 in support of this oft-repeated claim. Ibid., 410.
75 Though this argument is made in full at E, VP21–31, much of it is already implied by IIP44–49. Ibid., 607–611 and 480–484. Also see Jaquet, Sub Specie Aeternitatis, 108–124.
