A critical biography of the seventeenth-century scientist’s expansive life and work. Robert Hooke was England’s first professional scientist and a pioneer of science communication. He was also one of the earliest to write a guide for how others might become “experimental philosophers” like himself. In this new biography, Felicity Henderson takes Hooke’s scientific method as a starting point for an expedition into what Hooke himself saw as key aspects of a scientific life. Tracing this expansive life, the story draws readers through marketplaces, bookshops, construction sites, and coffee houses—even into the King’s royal presence at Whitehall Palace. Henderson explains how Hooke’s observations and conversations with the workmen, colleagues, craftsmen, and patrons he met through his work underpinned Hooke’s research in significant ways. The result is a fresh portrait of the scientist as a champion of the mundane, whose greatest gift was to help the world see even the smallest parts of everyday life with new eyes.

This original work contains the first detailed account of the natural philosophy of Robert Hooke (1635-1703), leading figure of the early Royal Society. From celestial mechanics to microscopy, from optics to geology and biology, Hooke’s contributions to the Scientific Revolution proved decisive. Focusing separately on partial aspects of Hooke’s works, scholars have hitherto failed to see the unifying idea of the natural philosophy underlying them. Some of his unpublished papers have passed almost unnoticed. Hooke pursued the foundation of a real, mechanical and experimental philosophy, and this book is an attempt to reconstruct it. The book includes a selection of Hooke's unpublished papers. Readers will discover a study of the new science through the works of one of the most known protagonists. Challenging the current views on the scientific life of restoration England, this book sheds new light on the circulation of Baconian ideals and the mechanical philosophy in the early Royal Society. This book is a must-read to anybody interested in Hooke, early modern science or Restoration history.

Oxford Studies in Early Modern Philosophy is an annual series, presenting a selection of the best current work in the history of early modern philosophy. It focuses on the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries--the extraordinary period of intellectual flourishing that begins, very roughly, with Descartes and his contemporaries and ends with Kant. It also publishes papers on thinkers or movements outside of that framework, provided they are important in illuminating early modern thought. The articles in OSEMP will be of importance to specialists within the discipline, but the editors also intend that they should appeal to a larger audience of philosophers, intellectual historians, and others who are interested in the development of modern thought.

In the history of science and philosophy and the philosophy of nature the name Robert Hooke has been largely ignored. H he is occasionally men tioned. it is usually in one of two ways: either he is briefly referred to in passing. or. he is viewed through the eyes of some later giant in the history of science and philosophy such as Sir Isaac Newton. Both approaches. however, do Hooke an injustice. In the academic world of today. there is no scholarly study available of Hooke's actual place in the history of science and philosophy with respect to his doctrines and accomplishments within the area of mechanics. Such a situation constitutes an unfortunate lacuna in the academic life of the world in our time. It is the more unfortunate because. in his time. Robert Hooke played an important role in the intellectual life of his world. Hooke. a contemporary of Boyle and Newton. lived from 1635 to 1703. For most of his active intellectual life he held the position of Curator of Experiments to the Royal Society of London. As a result of his own initi ative and of directives given him by other members of the Society. Hooke performed hundreds of experiments designed to explore the secrets of na ture so that men might better understand God's creation. In this treatise I will disengage from the large disorganized welter of monographs and trea tises left by Hooke all the material pertinent to the science of mechanics.

The emergence of experimental philosophy was one of the most significant developments in the early modern period. However, it is often overlooked in modern scholarship, despite being associated with leading figures such as Francis Bacon, Robert Boyle, Isaac Newton, Jean Le Rond d'Alembert, David Hume and Christian Wolff. Ranging from the early Royal Society of London in the seventeenth century to the uptake of experimental philosophy in Paris and Berlin in the eighteenth, this book provides new terms of reference for understanding early modern philosophy and science, and its eventual eclipse in the shadow of post-Kantian notions of empiricism and rationalism. Experimental Philosophy and the Origins of Empiricism is an integrated history of early modern experimental philosophy which challenges the rationalism and empiricism historiography that has dominated Anglophone history of philosophy for more than a century.

Robert Boyle, well known in scientific circles, has still not received the credit he deserves in philosophy. A leader in experimental philosophy, his interests range from morality and philosophy of religion to epistemology and the philosophy of science. The Bloomsbury Companion to Robert Boyle brings together the latest work on the lesser known aspects of Boyle's philosophy, alongside some of his best known views, and surveys the full range of his philosophy for the first time. Situating Boyle within the philosophical and scientific traditions and introducing his zeal for experiment and commitment to the improvement of humanity, chapters reveal how crucial chemistry and alchemy are to his philosophy of science. They take up the metaphysical and ontological consequences of his philosophy and discuss his influence in the 17th and 18th centuries. Highlighting the importance of his moral theory and theological commitments for his philosophy of science, metaphysics and epistemology, chapters show how they motivate Boyle's philosophical positions and practices. For students or researchers looking to better understand Boyle's contribution to philosophy The Bloomsbury Companion to Robert Boyle is a comprehensive and invaluable guide. By taking into account the last thirty years of scholarship and pointing towards the next thirty years it presents the best of the current research on Boyle's philosophy and significance today.

Newton is an evocative intellectual history of the life and ideas of Isaac Newton the natural philosopher, covering his influential thoughts about philosophical problems, our knowledge of nature, and even the nature of the divine. Offers a comprehensive and highly accessible introduction to the life and ideas of Isaac Newton, emphasizing his influential contributions to the field of philosophy Covers the principal philosophical topics that captivated Newton’s mind, from our knowledge of nature to the nature of the divine Includes the most recent and innovative research regarding Newton’s views on theology and philosophy Emphasizes the philosophical importance of Newton’s work to the history of philosophy and his engagement with the ideas of both historic and contemporary figures such as Galileo and Descartes, Leibniz and Locke

This is a comprehensive collection of essays that explores cutting-edge work in experimental philosophy, a radical new movement that applies quantitative and empirical methods to traditional topics of philosophical inquiry. Situates the discipline within Western philosophy and then surveys the work of experimental philosophers by sub-discipline Contains insights for a diverse range of fields, including linguistics, cognitive science, anthropology, economics, and psychology, as well as almost every area of professional philosophy today Edited by two rising scholars who take a broad and inclusive approach to the field Offers a complete introduction for non-specialists and students to the central approaches, findings, challenges, and controversies in experimental philosophy

"This volume pays tribute to Hooke's considerable achievements in a range of scientific endeavours, and shows how he was to influence science and scientists in the centuries that followed with inventions that are still of importance today."--BOOK JACKET.