Escepticismo, mecanicismo, teología y alquimia en Robert Boyle

Resumen

The purpose of this article is to approach to the nature of Robert Boyle´s mechanicism and in this way be able to appreciate how this thesis or explanatory model, i.e. the mechanicism, which was fundamental for the philosophers of the XVII century, had important differences among its defenders. In other words, the hypothesis I want to suggest in this work is that mechanicism was, on the one hand, an efficient form to confront aristotelism and to approach to the natural world and, on the other, that in each author of that period we find variations of what each natural philosopher considered mechanicism. It appears to me that in Boyle we can find the following features that define his mechanicism and therefore his natural philosophy; and that he shares some of them with other contemporary philosophers of nature and not others, since in the natural philosophy of each of the authors we can find a distinct form of dealing with the pirronic skepticism, which will result in a specific epistemology and, therefore, both natural philosophy and epistemology were linked in a given theological perspective. In short, that the different combinations of the distinct epistemic as well as theological postures resulted in a specific natural philosophy. In other words, in this work I intend to illustrate all this by exposing some of the epistemic and theological elements that compose the natural philosophy of Robert Boyle and, therefore, approach to the nature of his mechanicism.