Viewing past science from the point of view of present science, thereby illuminating both: Philosophy versus experiment in the work of Robert Boyle

• The seventeenth century witnessed the replacement of an Aristotelian worldview by a mechanical one.
• It also witnessed the beginnings of significant experimental enquiry.
• I argue the historical case that the emergence of the mechanical worldview and the emergence of science were not closely related.
• It was the new experimental practice rather than the mechanical philosophy that was o grow into modern science.

The seventeenth century witnessed the replacement of an Aristotelian worldview by a mechanical one. It also witnessed the beginnings of significant experimental enquiry. Alerted by the fact that the methods involved in the latter, but not in the former, resemble those employed in later science, I argue the historical case that the emergence of the mechanical worldview and the emergence of science were not closely related and that it was the latter that was to develop into science as we have come to know it. The details are explored in the context of the philosophical and experimental work of Robert Boyle and the relationship between them.