Ancient Egyptians, Babylonians, Greeks, Chinese, Arabs, and Indians (both Asian and American) were great observers of nature. Fantastic models of the world and the way it acts were built upon these "scientists'" active observations and experiences of nature. Modern science certainly includes observation and experience of nature, but what critically distinguishes modern science from pre-modern "science" is the experimental method, i.e. the active "testing" of nature to try to elucidate its secrets. Rather than being a more or less passive observer and thinker about nature, the modern scientist plays an active role in manipulating nature in order to force out answers to the scientist's questions. This transformation from "experience" to experiment in science occurred in the great Scientific Revolution of the 16th and 17th centuries. In this project, Dr. Dear is trying to obtain a better understanding of the origins of modern experimental science in the latter half of the 17th century. Experimentalism as a socially and intellectually legitimated form of acquiring knowledge of nature emerged through a subversion of and conflict with the previously dominant intellectual practices of Aristotelian natural philosophy and mathematical science. However, the nature of that subversion and conflict and the nature of those prior intellectual practices as they bear on the "experimental philosophy" that became established in the second half of the century, are little understood. A close examination of those presuppositions and prerequisites relating to the use of experimental statements which are found in the accredited orthodox natural philosophy of European colleges and universities of the period, and a tracing of the differing intellectual and practical trajectories found in various distinct disciplinary traditions, will provide the correct context within which to understand the meaning of "experiment" as it was developed by the major figures of the Scientific Revolution.
