Boyle in Seventeenth-Century Context

Abstract

The past decade has seen proliferation of works on the different contexts that influenced the thought of Robert Boyle. It is quite likely that these studies will become even more numerous given the publication of the new edition of Boyle's works by Michael Hunter and Edward B. Davis (14 vols., Pickering and Chatto, 2000) that not only corrects earlier editions but also includes previously unpublished material and copious annotations that identify references made in Boyle's works. In the two volumes to be reviewed here, Hunter's collection of essays focuses on Boyle's moral, religious, and social milieu whereas Anstey's monograph is concerned with developing an account of Boyle's ties to medieval and early modern metaphysical context. Hunter, in series of eight previously published and three new essays, makes extensive use of manuscript sources (some of which are appended to the essays) in order to reveal rather different image of Boyle from the suave and sophisticated one which has come down to us (p. 4). The early chapters delve into details of Boyle's private life and the latter ones focus on concerns about his public image. All of the chapters are organized around the theme of Boyle's scrupulosity that Hunter argues is displayed both in Boyle's interest in casuistry and in his experimental science. After discussion of these themes in his introductory chapter, Hunter describes Boyle's intellectual development from early moralist and essayist to practicing experimentalist in an essay from 1995, How Boyle Became Scientist. The next three chapters, on what Hunter terms Boyle's dysfunctionalism, serve as way to counter the prevalent idea of Boyle as a paragon of civility and moderation with clear and