Reijer Hooykaas

Reijer Hooykaas (1 August 1906 in Schoonhoven – 4 January 1994 in Zeist) was a Dutch historian of science. He along with Eduard Jan Dijksterhuis were pioneers in professionalizing the history of science in the Netherlands. Hooykaas gave the prestigious Gifford Lectures at St. Andrews in 1975-77. H. Floris Cohen dedicated his historiographical text The Scientific Revolution (University of Chicago Press, 1994) to Hooykaas; its section on religion deals primarily with Hooykaas.

Life He was born into a Calvinist family of silversmiths. Hooykaas studied chemistry and physics at the University of Utrecht graduating in 1933. While teaching high school chemistry and working on his Ph.D., he published articles on the history of science and religion, which brought his abilities to the attention of other scholars.

In 1946 he became the first to hold a history of science chair at a Dutch university. From 1946 to 1972 he was a professor at the Free University of Amsterdam (Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam).

In 1959 he became member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences.

In 1976—1984 he was president of the International Commission on the History of Geological Sciences (INHIGEO).

Impatience

Hooykaas's impatience with certain modern historical attitudes has been the object of respect and praise. Fellow historian Malcolm Oster noted that Hooykaas was "personally irritated" by historians who conclude that early modern scientists with strong religious views must have had "some mental disorder." Examples of such scientists for Hooykaas are Blaise Pascal, Robert Boyle, and Isaac Newton. "Science and Theology in the Middle Ages" Free University Quarterly 3, 1954, pp. 77–163. Natural Law and Divine Miracle: The Principle of Uniformity in Geology, Biology, and Theology, Leiden: EJ Brill, 1963 Though primarily focusing on discussions in the nineteenth century, the chapter on theology (outlining four different metaphysical positions) is also relevant to earlier debates.