Empowering Lay Belief: Robert Boyle and the Moral Economy of Experiment

Abstract

Argument

How did Boyle’s religious concerns and views cause his experimental philosophy to differ from received views on the goals and methods of natural philosophy? I argue that Boyle predicated his experimental philosophy on two fundamental doctrines. The first claimed that attributing causality to natural entities was idolatrous, that is, intellectually and morally erroneous. The second doctrine claimed that causal relations in the natural world were the property of God’s benevolent government. Boyle’s experimental studies were accordingly intended to identify specific manifestations of this property, while philosophers traditionally construed experiment as an aid to observation of phenomena. Boyle rendered experiment a learning tool that enabled believers to accommodate themselves, theoretically and practically, to God’s benevolent rule. As a servant of the public good, this experimental philosopher formed an important turning point in the emergence of modern science and its role in the social division of labor.