Intermediate causes and explanations: The key to understanding the scientific revolution

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• 作者：Alan Chalmers ^{achalmers@usyd.edu.au}
• 关键词：Intermediate causes ; Experimental philosophy ; Mechanical philosophy ; Robert Boyle ; Blaise Pascal
• 刊名：Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A
• 出版年：2012
• 出版时间：December, 2012
• 年：2012
• 卷：43
• 期：4
• 页码：551-562
• 全文大小：619 K

文摘

It is instructive to view the scientific revolution from the point of view of Robert Boyle¡¯s distinction between intermediate and ultimate causes. From this point of view, the scientific revolution involved the identification of intermediate causes and their investigation by way of experiment as opposed to the specification of ultimate causes of the kind involved in the corpuscular matter theories of the mechanical philosophers. The merits of this point of view are explored in this paper by focussing on the hydrostatics of Pascal and Boyle, understood as the experimental investigation of the action of the intermediate causes weight and pressure. The distinctive features of this new science are highlighted by comparing it with two alternative versions of hydrostatics, that of Stevin and that of Descartes.