Epistemic Optimism in Enlightenment Natural Philosophy: Metaphysics and Experimental Philosophy (EPISTOP)

From a methodological point of view, the history of the classical sciences is often presented as a triumphant march of experimentation anchored in the science of Newton and the Newtonians. The historiography of 18th-c. scientific methodology tends moreover to portray each form of persistence of metaphysics as the sign of resistance to modernity or as some obsolete archaism. The aim of my research project is to bring a twofold shift to this traditional interpretation. First, by shedding light on the presence of other experimental traditions, some older than, some contemporary with the Newtonian one, that explain how Newton's natural philosophy was received and, second, by showing that within a certain number of 18th-c. scientific methodologies there was a fertile interaction between experimentation and metaphysics. The idea of the project is to propose a novel historiographical hypothesis about the epistemic values of Enlightenment science.