A.クレリクツィーオによるボイル化学の新評価とその批判的検討
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概要
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Recently, A. Clericuzio has enthusiastically tried to develop a new evaluation of Robert Boyle. Among a group of historians who attempt to place Boyle within the irrationalists group he aims to place Boyle's chemistry in the traditional school of chemistry of that time. However, our close examination of Clericuzio's asser- tions has revealed that they are based on a distorted and mistaken understanding of Boyle's writings and orthodox historical assessments, especially those of T. Kuhn and M. Boas Hall. First, it was not atomism but minima, or corpuscular theory, that had com- bined with traditional chemistry in the early seventeenth century before Boyle's work. Secondly, in Boyle's corpuscular philosophy, chemical qualities are not supposed to exist in particles as Clericuzio asserts. Boyle explained chemical phe- nomena with the interactions of mixed particles of various structures with con- stituent corpuscular constructions. Contrary to Clericuzio's insistence, Boyle's theory should be called mechanical. Thirdly, Kuhn and Boas do not insist that Boyle explained chemical phenomena in terms of the mechanical characters of atoms. Moreover, their orthodox assessment that Boyle denied elements is justi- fied, as Boyle did not regard elements as fundamental principles of the world and thought that "almost of anything may at length be made (of) anything". In this issue, Clericuzio's attempt to associate Boyle's chemical theory with traditional chemistry is not consistent with historical scholarly evaluation.
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