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346Malebranche and Berkeley on Efficient CausationIn Tad M. Schmaltz (ed.), Efficient Causation: A History, Oup Usa. pp. 198-230. 2014.
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16The Status of Mechanism in Locke’s EssayPhilosophical Review 107 (3): 381-414. 1998.The prominent place of corpuscularian mechanism in Locke's Essay is nowadays universally acknowledged. Certainly, Locke's discussions of the primary/secondary quality distinction and of real essences cannot be understood without reference to the corpuscularian science of his day, which held that all macroscopic bodily phenomena should be explained in terms of the motions and impacts of submicroscopic particles, or corpuscles, each of which can be fully characterized in terms of a strictly limite…Read more
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48Old History and Introductory Teaching in Early Modern PhilosophyIn J. B. Schneewind (ed.), Teaching New Histories of Philosophy, Princeton University Press. pp. 19-28. 2004.
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369Mechanism and Essentialism in Locke's ThoughtIn Stewart Duncan & Antonia LoLordo (eds.), Debates in Modern Philosophy: Essential Readings and Contemporary Responses, Routledge. pp. 159. 2012.
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998Berkeley's natural philosophy and philosophy of scienceIn Kenneth P. Winkler (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Berkeley, Cambridge University Press. pp. 230--265. 2005.Although George Berkeley himself made no major scientific discoveries, nor formulated any novel theories, he was nonetheless actively concerned with the rapidly evolving science of the early eighteenth century. Berkeley's works display his keen interest in natural philosophy and mathematics from his earliest writings (Arithmetica, 1707) to his latest (Siris, 1744). Moreover, much of his philosophy is fundamentally shaped by his engagement with the science of his time. In Berkeley's best-known ph…Read more
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482Are corpuscles unobservable in principle for Locke?Journal of the History of Philosophy 30 (1): 33-52. 1992.
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1646Sensible qualities and material bodies in Descartes and BoyleIn Lawrence Nolan (ed.), Primary and secondary qualities: the historical and ongoing debate, Oxford University Press. 2011.Descartes and Boyle were the most influential proponents of strict mechanist accounts of the physical world, accounts which carried with them a distinction between primary and secondary (or sensible) qualities. For both, the distinction is a piece of natural philosophy. Nevertheless the distinction is quite differently articulated, and, especially, differently grounded in the two thinkers. For Descartes, reasoned reflection reveals to us that bodies must consist in mere extension and its modific…Read more
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142George BerkeleyStanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. 2008.George Berkeley, Bishop of Cloyne, was one of the great philosophers of the early modern period. He was a brilliant critic of his predecessors, particularly Descartes, Malebranche, and Locke. He was a talented metaphysician famous for defending idealism, that is, the view that reality consists exclusively of minds and their ideas. Berkeley's system, while it strikes many as counter intuitive, is strong and flexible enough to counter most objections. His most studied works, the Treatise Concernin…Read more
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342Robert BoyleIn Steven M. Nadler (ed.), A Companion to Early Modern Philosophy, Wiley-blackwell. pp. 338-353. 2002.This chapter contains section titled: I. Life and Works II. Theoretical Natural Philosophy: Boyle's Corpuscularianism III. Experimental Natural Philosophy and Methodology IV. Theology, Metaphysics, and Natural Philosophy V. Boyle's Influence.
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430The uses of mechanism: Corpuscularianism in drafts a and B of Locke's essayIn William Newman, John Murdoch & Cristoph Lüthy (eds.), Late Medieval and Early Modern Corpuscularian Matter Theory, E.j. Brill. pp. 515-534. 2001.That corpuscularianism played a critical role in Locke’s philosophical thought has perhaps now attained the status of a truism. In particular, it is universally acknowledged that the primary/secondary quality distinction and the conception of real essence found in the Essay Concerning Human Understanding cannot be understood apart from the corpuscularian science of Locke’s time.1 When Locke provides lists of the primary qualities of bodies,2 the qualities that “are really in them whether we perc…Read more
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Peter R. Anstey: The Philosophy of Robert BoyleBritish Journal for the History of Philosophy 11 (2): 342-344. 2003.