Seventeenth-Century Controversies over the “New Experimental Philosophy of Nature”: Selected Philosophical Polemics of Joseph Glanvill

Abstract

Abstract: This article examines selected critiques directed against the philosophy of Joseph Glanvill (1636-1680) and, by extension, against the intellectual formation he represented — the Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge. Because Glanvill’s opponents emerged from diverse intellectual traditions, their arguments provide insight into the contemporary standing of the “new experimental philosophy of nature” in relation to competing seventeenth-century currents of thought. The paper discusses, in turn, the criticism advanced by the conservative Anglican clergyman Meric Casaubon and by English Aristotelians, with particular attention to Thomas White. The analysis focuses on such issues as the perceived relationship between theology and natural philosophy, conceptions of the progress of knowledge, and the forms of scepticism present in the writings of the examined authors. The study concludes that in these debates the primary targets of criticism were seldom those elements of the new experimental philosophy that might be regarded as scientific or proto-scientific. Rather, controversy centred on its positioning vis-à-vis classical systems and the history of natural philosophy. From a predominantly theological perspective, the project was judged problematic less because of its concrete scientific practices than because of the broader narratives and epistemic claims advanced by members of the Royal Society.