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Theory Choice in the Seventeenth Century: Robert Boyle Against the Paracelsian Tria Prima

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Theory Choice in the History of Chemical Practices

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Abstract

Robert Boyle’s famous Sceptical Chymist (1661) is a dialogue on the chemical components of matter, carried out between a Peripatetic Aristotelian (Themistius), a Chymist (Philoponus) and a Sceptic (Carneades), and moderated by a supposedly impartial individual (Eleutherius).

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Notes

  1. 1.

    See previous chapter by Dr. Jennifer Rampling.

  2. 2.

    See, for instance [31]. For his protest at being called a Helmontian, see [32]. This defence suggests that at least some persons saw him as such.

  3. 3.

    Boyle acknowledges the influence of Van Helmont on his speculations of the fire; for instance, see [35].

  4. 4.

    Boyle qualifies this criticism as referring to ‘some Helmontians’ at [41]. He must have known that Van Helmont certainly did not say that all things come from seeds, as he was a supporter of the theory of ‘spontaneous generation.’ On the debates on spontaneous generation in Van Helmont’s time, see Hirai [42].

  5. 5.

    See Principe [1] for a summary of the glowing praise of the book by early historians of chemistry.

  6. 6.

    As Newman and Principe have shown, Boyle encountered Van Helmont very early in his natural philosophical career and was only for about a year under the influence of a non-Helmontian, Benjamin Worsley, before encountering the very Helmontian George Starkey. See [28].

  7. 7.

    Kuhn [61] particularly emphasised the importance of subjective factors in paradigm choice. He pointed out that ‘paradigm choice can never be unequivocally settled by logic and experiment alone’ [62]. His argument that young scientists find it easier to adopt new paradigms seems particularly congruent in Boyle’s case [63].

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  1. History Faculty, University of Oxford, George Street, Oxford, OX1 2RL, UK

    Georgiana D. Hedesan

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Correspondence to Georgiana D. Hedesan .

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  1. University College London, Dept. of Science and Technology Studies, London, United Kingdom

    Emma Tobin

  2. Department of Science and, University College London, London, United Kingdom

    Chiara Ambrosio

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Hedesan, G.D. (2016). Theory Choice in the Seventeenth Century: Robert Boyle Against the Paracelsian Tria Prima . In: Tobin, E., Ambrosio, C. (eds) Theory Choice in the History of Chemical Practices. SpringerBriefs in Molecular Science(). Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-29893-1_3

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