The rise of cryptographic metaphors in Boyle and their use for the mechanical philosophy

Dana Matthiessen

doi:10.1016/j.shpsa.2018.07.002

The rise of cryptographic metaphors in Boyle and their use for the mechanical philosophy

Stud Hist Philos Sci. 2019 Feb:73:8-21. doi: 10.1016/j.shpsa.2018.07.002. Epub 2018 Aug 1.

Author

Dana Matthiessen¹

Affiliation

¹ University of Pittsburgh Department of History and Philosophy of Science, 1017 Cathedral of Learning, 4200 Fifth Avenue, Pittsburgh, PA, 15260, USA. Electronic address: dam228@pitt.edu.

PMID: 30914126
DOI: 10.1016/j.shpsa.2018.07.002

Abstract

This paper tracks the development of Boyle's conception of the natural world in terms of the popular "book of nature" trope. Boyle initially spoke of the creatures and phenomena of nature in a spiritual and moral register, as emblems of divine purpose, but gradually shifted from this ideographic view to an alphabetical account, which at times became posed in explicitly cryptographic terms. I explain this transition toward cryptographic metaphors in terms of Boyle's social and intellectual milieu and their concordance with the reductive and conjectural character of the mechanical philosophical program.

Keywords: Cryptography; Hypothetical method; Mechanical philosophy; Robert Boyle; Royal society.