Affiliation:
1. 1Indiana University, Bloomington
tawrin@gmail.com
Abstract
This essay investigates the relationship between color and contingency in Robert Boyle’s Experiments and Considerations Touching Colours (1664) and his essays on the unsuccessfulness of experiments in Certain Physiological Essays (1661). In these two works Boyle wrestles with a difficult practical and philosophical problem with experiments, which he calls the problem of contingency. In Touching Colours, the problem of contingency is magnified by the much-debated issue of whether color had any deep epistemic importance. His limited theoretical principle guiding him in Touching Colours, that color is but modified light, further exacerbated the problem. Rather than theory, Boyle often relied on craftsmen, whose mastery of color phenomena was, Boyle mentions, brought about by economic forces, to determine when colors were indicators of important ‘inward’ properties of substances, and thus to secure a solid foundation for his experimental history of color.
Subject
History and Philosophy of Science,History,Medicine (miscellaneous)
Cited by
5 articles.
订阅此论文施引文献
订阅此论文施引文献,注册后可以免费订阅5篇论文的施引文献,订阅后可以查看论文全部施引文献
1. Colouring flowers: books, art, and experiment in the household of Margery and Henry Power;The British Journal for the History of Science;2023-01-13
2. The Historical, Scientific and Philosophical Background of Texturæ Contemplatio;International Archives of the History of Ideas Archives internationales d'histoire des idées;2023
3. Color in the Early Modern Period;Encyclopedia of Early Modern Philosophy and the Sciences;2022
4. Vibrant Matters;International Archives of the History of Ideas Archives internationales d'histoire des idées;2020
5. Color in the Early Modern Period;Encyclopedia of Early Modern Philosophy and the Sciences;2020