School of Historical and Philosophical Studies - Theses
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ItemThe early Royal Society of London( 1989)The Early Royal Society of London - Alan B. H. Taylor This thesis examines the factors that influenced the Royal Society from c1663 to c1681. Included in these factors are the approaches to knowing of the time and the background intellectual beliefs from which they were derived, as well as the Society's administration, its activities and its approaches The findings of this thesis are that the classical intellectual framework played an influential role, as did the administration' of the Society, in its operations, also it is claimed that the Fellows of the Royal Society did not achieve their plans to conduct the investigations carried out at the Society in a Baconian style. I commence this work with an evaluation of the historical methods employed by writers on the Royal Society to date. In section one the emphasis of the writing is on the influence of the classical inteIlectual structure (in contrast to its content) on influential thinkers of the time. The section commences with the argument that the classical structure was implanted at Oxford and Cambridge in the thoughts of its students. Included in this chapter is a list of the influential Fellows of the Royal Society showing those who attended Oxford and Cambridge. These Fellows listed are assigned a weighting according to their degree of activity in the Society. An examination is made in subsequent chapters of the influence of the classical framework on Bacon, Harvey and Hooke. Included in the latter is the point that Hooke believed he could use the processes of analysis and synthesis as part of a process of discovery. Finally in this section the approaches to knowing of a mystic and a non-mystic are contrasted and the commoalities and differences highlighted. Again the classical framework is shown to be of influence. With the above as a background an evaluation is then carried out of the administration, approaches and activities of the Royal Society. Initially the focus is on the intended administration and approach of the Society. The claim is made that the Society's intention was to empirically evaluate all claims to knowing, both those made in the past and in the future. The Fellows were not against the teachings of Aristotle per se but were opposed to the blind acceptance of any claims on the basis of authority The planned administration and approach of the Royal Society, as will be shown in subsequent chapters, were of considerable influence on the day-to-day operations of the Society. In the following chapters, which cover the periods spanned by the years 1663, 1672 and 1680, the fortunes of the above facets of the Society's existence are addressed. It is argued that although initially the Society planned to conduct its operations in a Baconian style, this did not eventuate. The Society moved from its putative goal of initiating and conducting co-operative research to being an institution that reacted to and facilitated the contributions of its members. Nonetheless it is shown that in 1680 the Fellows did conduct a co-operative investigation, and investigation in which the Fellows placed theory first propounded by Hooke. In the approaches to knowing that are carried out under the Society's auspices the debt to the classical framework is most revealed in the episode of Newton's theory of colour and in the process of analysis, with its classical connotations, in the above mentioned 1680 investigation. Also discussed is the style of reporting that the Fellows employed in the investigations carried out at the Society and in the journals. It is argued that the Philosophical Transactions and the Philosophical Collections did not reflect the activities carried out at the Society.