No open-access location is known for this record yet.
No open-access location is known for this record yet.
The object of this paper is to re–examine the extent to which anthropocentric readings of nature were dislodged as a consequence of developments in 17th–century natural philosophy. The natural theology in Ray's Wisdom of God (1691) provides access to the issues because Ray was explicitly critical of those who imagined that everything had been made for man alone. The paper begins by identifying familiar features of the ‘scientific revolution’ that contributed most to a decentring of the human self: the Copernican innovation, telescopic discoveries, speculations concerning a plurality of worlds, the Cartesian ban on the investigation of final causes and the collapse of microcosm/macrocosm analogies. There were, however, counter currents to these centrifugal tendencies, notably in Robert Boyle's response to Descartes's strictures. In the main section of the paper, I therefore identify the various ways in which an anthropocentricity was not only preserved but re–emphasized in the post–Copernican Universe. A reconfiguration of human centrality was achieved through cosmology, epistemology and anthropomorphic conceptions of divine activity. As Ray's writing indicates, there were also common qualifications to the mechanization of nature. An elevation rather than relegation of the human spirit was also evident in claims to imitate the creative activities of the deity and in the aesthetic appreciation of the Creator's works. The presence in the world of so many resources for human use also fed anthropocentric sentiments. Boyle restored anthropocentric perspectives through an appeal to scripture and Ray through the suggestion that objects which might appear to have no human use now would have their uses revealed in the future. While Ray did indeed repudiate the proposition that everything was made for man alone, he remained convinced that everything had some human use. The paper concludes with a Darwinian perspective from which Ray's natural theology was incurably anthropocentric, even if it was not in every respect as arrogant as Darwin deemed natural theology to be.
Loading…
Imported from OpenAlex (CC0) — nothing here is generated.