Peter Anstey (Philosophy, University of
Otago)
Essentialism and Baconian natural history
in the late seventeenth century
The
Baconian method of natural history was the dominant method by which
experimental natural philosophy was practised in Britain in the latter decades
of the seventeenth century. This paper argues that the Baconian method provided
a sort of incubator in which new fledgling sciences of classification, such as
geology, the study of fossils and nosology, were able to emerge in this period.
It also argues that species essentialism was never far from the surface in the
works of the practitioners of the Baconian method and that this is evident in
the speculative theories that accompanied these fledgling sciences.
