Handling "Occult Qualities" in the Scientific Revolution

Xiaona Wang, Ph. D. (2019, University of Edinburgh), is now a Leverhulme Early Career Research Fellow at the University of Warwick, Centre for the Study of the Renaissance, working on a three-year project on early modern gravitational theories.

Contents

Acknowledgements



Introduction



1 Re-disciplining “Occult Qualities”: Mechanics and the Mixed Mathematical Sciences

 1.1 Being “Skilled in ‘Catoptrics’ ”

 1.2 Testing a Body of “Astronomical Hypotheses”

 1.3 Dismissing “Idle Imaginings”

 1.4 Creating the “Unheard-of Paradox”



2 Manifesting “Occult Causes”: Empirical Investigations and Experimental Philosophy

 2.1 The Physician’s Pathway

 2.2 The Baconian Method

 2.3 Occult Causes; Manifest Effects

 2.4 The “Physico-Mathematicall-Experimentall” Programme



3 Employing the Occult Powers of the Lodestone and Orbital Motions

 3.1 Gilbert’s Magnetism

 3.2 Magnetism and Gravity

 3.3 Approaches to Orbital Motions



4 Exploring Hidden Qualities of Matter: “vis activa”

 4.1 Matter Emits (Magnetical) Effluvia

 4.2 Matter Vibrates and So Does Aether

 4.3 Matter Attracts and Repels



5 Reintroducing “Occult Qualities” into Natural Philosophy? Newton’s Approaches to Physics

 5.1 Early Immersion in the Mixed Mathematical Programme

 5.2 The Inimitable Newtonian Methodology: Dynamics

 5.3 Approaches to Physics and Active Principles



Conclusion

Bibliography

Index