Abstract

This dissertation examines the natural philosophy of Kenelm Digby , focusing on the ways in which he adopted the vocabulary and explanatory models of the new "mechanical" or "corpuscularian" approach to scientific questions that characterized much of the natural science of the 17th century. Digby was a important thinker in his day, engaged in dialogue and collaboration with such figures as Descartes, Hobbes, Boyle, Mersenne, and White. Though he has been largely forgotten today, his philosophical and scientific works were widely read, and reflect many of the defining currents of early modern European thought; thus the study of Digby sheds light on the intellectual history of the 17th century, as well as on the work of canonical philosophers and scientists of the period. The dissertation considers Digby's approaches to questions including the nature of matter; the reality of the vacuum; the causes of gravity; the motion of the heart and the circulation of the blood; the use of "magical" or "sympathetic" medicines; the resurrection of the body; the relation of the mind to the brain; and the immortality of the soul