ČWho yet knows how far and to what discoveries this invention may be improved?č This question regarding the magnet, asked by a sceptical member of the Royal Society, Joseph Glanvill, is key to understanding how scepticism about a metaphysical type of knowledge was combined with belief in a new way through which knowledge could develop. These two positions merge into what could be called Čthe technological turnč in early modern science. Given the lack of an answer to his question, Glanvill claims, ČThe Royal Society, by their Care and Endeavors in the using this Instrument [the magnet], give us hopes, that they will let none of its useful Applications to escape us.č1
This paper analyses how early modern science combined scepticism and belief in the advancement of knowledge. We consider two questions: How did a sceptical perspective help to legitimise a practical shift in natural philosophy? And how was Francis Bacon, one of the main proponents of this shift, connected to the early modern history of scepticism? We argue that Francis Bacon's work was an important step in the transition from the Renaissance scepticism developed by Sanchez, Montaigne and Charron to the mitigated and constructive scepticism of Wilkins, Boyle and Glanvill. We hold, against Richard H. Popkin and Henry G. van Leeuwen, that Bacon should not be placed in the company of those such as Descartes who tried to refute scepticism and establish a new certain science; and that the mitigated or constructive scepticism held by the early members of the Royal Society, Glanvill in particular, has Bacon as one of its sources and therefore that there is no inconsistency in Boyle and Glanvill's holding a kind of mitigated scepticism and, at the same time, taking Bacon as their main patron in natural philosophy.
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Oliveira, B.J., Neto, J.R.M. (2009). The Sceptical Evaluation of Technê and Baconian Science. In: Paganini, G., Neto, J.R.M. (eds) Renaissance Scepticisms. International Archives of the History of Ideas, vol 199. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4020-8518-5_12
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