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Author: Bruce T. MORAN
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674041224
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 221
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Book Description
Reacting to the perception that the break, early on in the scientific revolution, between alchemy and chemistry was clean and abrupt, Moran literately and engagingly recaps what was actually a slow process. Far from being the superstitious amalgam it is now considered, alchemy was genuine science before and during the scientific revolution. The distinctive alchemical procedure--distillation--became the fundamental method of analytical chemistry, and the alchemical goal of transmuting "base metals" into gold and silver led to the understanding of compounds and elements. What alchemy very gradually but finally lost in giving way to chemistry was its spiritual or religious aspect, the linkages it discerned between purely physical and psychological properties. Drawing saliently from the most influential alchemical and scientific texts of the medieval to modern epoch (especially the turbulent and eventful seventeenth century), Moran fashions a model short history of science volume
Author: Bruce T. MORAN
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674041224
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 221
Get Book Here
Book Description
Reacting to the perception that the break, early on in the scientific revolution, between alchemy and chemistry was clean and abrupt, Moran literately and engagingly recaps what was actually a slow process. Far from being the superstitious amalgam it is now considered, alchemy was genuine science before and during the scientific revolution. The distinctive alchemical procedure--distillation--became the fundamental method of analytical chemistry, and the alchemical goal of transmuting "base metals" into gold and silver led to the understanding of compounds and elements. What alchemy very gradually but finally lost in giving way to chemistry was its spiritual or religious aspect, the linkages it discerned between purely physical and psychological properties. Drawing saliently from the most influential alchemical and scientific texts of the medieval to modern epoch (especially the turbulent and eventful seventeenth century), Moran fashions a model short history of science volume
Author: John Chambers
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1620552051
Category : Body, Mind & Spirit
Languages : en
Pages : 583
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Book Description
Newton’s heretical yet equation-incisive writings on theology, spirituality, alchemy, and prophecy, written in secret alongside his Principia Mathematica • Shows how Newton’s brilliance extended far beyond math and science into alchemy, spirituality, prophecy, and the search for lost continents such as Atlantis • Explains how he was seeking to rediscover the one true religion that existed prior to the Flood of Noah, when science and spirituality were one • Examines Newton’s alternate timeline of prehistory and his study of prophecy through the Book of Revelations, including his prediction of Apocalypse in the year 2060 Isaac Newton (1643-1727) is still regarded by the world as the greatest scientist who ever lived. He invented calculus, discovered the binomial theorem, explained the rainbow, built the first reflecting telescope, and explained the force of gravity. In his famous masterpiece, Principia Mathematica, he described the mechanics of the physical universe with unimagined precision, proving the cosmos was put together according to laws. The perfection of these laws implied a perfect legislator. To Newton, they were proof that God existed. At the same time Newton was writing Principia Mathematica, he was writing a twin volume that he might have called, had it been completed, Principia Theologia--Principles of Theology. This other masterpiece of Newton, kept secret because of the heresies it contained, consists of thousands of essays providing equation-incisive answers to the spiritual questions that have plagued mankind through the ages. Examining Newton’s secret writings, John Chambers shows how his brilliance extended into alchemy, spirituality, the search for lost continents such as Atlantis, and a quest to uncover the “corrupted texts” that were rife in the Bibles of his time. Although he was a devout Christian, Newton’s work on the Bible was focused not on restoring the original Jewish and Christian texts but on rediscovering the one true religion that existed prior to the Flood of Noah, when science and spirituality were one. The author shows that a single thread runs through Newton’s metaphysical explorations: He is attempting to chart the descent of man’s soul from perfection to the present day. The author also examines Newton’s alternate timeline of ancient history and his study of prophecy through the Book of Revelations, including his prediction of an Apocalypse in the year 2060 followed by a radically transformed world. He shows that Newton’s great hope was that these writings would provide a moral compass for humanity as it embarked upon the great enterprise that became our technological world.
Author: Georgiana D. Hedesan
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317182138
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 260
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Book Description
History of science credits the Flemish physician, alchemist and philosopher Jan Baptist Van Helmont (1579-1644) for his contributions to the development of chemistry and medicine. Yet, as this book makes clear, focussing on Van Helmont's impact on modern science does not do justice to the complexity of his thought or to his influence on successive generations of intellectuals like Robert Boyle or Gottfried Leibniz. Revealing Van Helmont as an original thinker who sought to produce a post-Scholastic synthesis of religion and natural philosophy, Georgiana Hedesan reconstructs his ambitious quest for universal knowledge as it emerges from the text of the Ortus medicinae (1648). Published after Van Helmont's death by his son, the work can best be understood as a compilation of finished and unfinished treatises, the historical product of a life unsettled by religious persecution and personal misfortune. The present book provides a coherent account of Van Helmont's philosophy by analysing its main tenets. Divided into two parts, the study opens with a background to Van Helmont's concept of an alchemical Christian philosophy, demonstrating that his outlook was deeply grounded in the tradition of medical alchemy as reformed by Theophrastus von Hohenheim, called Paracelsus (1493-1541). It then reconstitutes Van Helmont's biography, while giving a historical dimension to his intellectual output. The second part reconstructs Van Helmont's Christian philosophy, investigating his views on God, nature and man, as well as his applied philosophy. Hedesan also provides an account of the development of Van Helmont's thought throughout his life. The conclusion sums up Van Helmont's intellectual achievement and highlights avenues of future research.
Author: Jennifer M. Rampling
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 022671084X
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 427
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Book Description
“Presents the largely uncharted history of English alchemy from its medieval roots until the end of the seventeenth century . . . an astounding eye for detail.” —Annals of Science In medieval and early modern Europe, the practice of alchemy promised extraordinary physical transformations. Who would not be amazed to see base metals turned into silver and gold, hard iron into soft water, and deadly poison into elixirs that could heal the human body? To defend such claims, alchemists turned to the past, scouring ancient books for evidence of a lost alchemical heritage and seeking to translate their secret language and obscure imagery into replicable, practical effects. Tracing the development of alchemy in England over four hundred years, from the beginning of the fourteenth century to the end of the seventeenth, Jennifer M. Rampling illuminates the role of alchemical reading and experimental practice in the broader context of national and scientific history. Using new manuscript sources, she shows how practitioners like George Ripley, John Dee, and Edward Kelley, as well as many previously unknown alchemists, devised new practical approaches to alchemy while seeking the support of English monarchs. By reconstructing their alchemical ideas, practices, and disputes, Rampling reveals how English alchemy was continually reinvented over the space of four centuries, resulting in changes to the science itself. In so doing, The Experimental Fire bridges the intellectual history of chemistry and the wider worlds of early modern patronage, medicine, and science. “An engaging piece of scholarly work . . . it humanizes the alchemist, showing him or her to be a historical personage caught up in the circumstances of the era and seeking to survive the upheavals and challenges of historical reality . . . bound to make an important contribution to the history of science, social history, history of scholarship, and the history of the book.” —Early Science and Medicine
Author: Seyyed Hossein Nasr
Publisher: SUNY Press
ISBN: 9780791401767
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 358
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Book Description
Nasr (Islamic studies, George Washington U.), in a series of ten lectures, argues that, unlike in the West, where scientific thought has been secularized, in the East, knowledge and religious experience have remained unified. Drawing from Buddhist, Hindu, Judaic, Christian, and Islamic traditions, he finds in each the idea of perennial wisdom as a philosophical basis for such unity. Paperback edition ($10.95) not seen. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR
Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 524
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Book Description
Author: Gilchrist, Cherry
Publisher: Weiser Books
ISBN: 1578635853
Category : Body, Mind & Spirit
Languages : en
Pages : 162
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Book Description
Alchemy is the art of transformation. At its simplest, the alchemist turns base metals into gold. However, this is only one dimension of alchemy—at a more sophisticated level the alchemist's "base metal" is symbolic of himself that needs to be worked upon and the "gold" produced is the alchemist himself in his or her quest to perfect his own nature. In short, true alchemy is a discipline involving physical, psychological and spiritual work aimed at producing wholeness and enlightenment. From the origins of alchemy, both reputed and documented, Cherry Gilchrist's lively and sympathetic narrative takes the reader from the alchemical interests of the ancient Egyptians to the flowering of alchemy in the 17th century. She also elucidates the complexities of alchemical symbolism and examines the ways in which alchemy has developed in the 20th century.
Author: Robert K. DeKosky
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 0761874038
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 533
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Book Description
In Knowledge and Cosmos: Development and Decline of the Medieval Perspective, 2nd Edition, Robert K. DeKosky focuses on issues in astronomy, cosmology, physics, matter theory, philosophy, and theology vital to the “Copernican Revolution.” This book describes efforts among individuals advocating different world views to fit new ideas compatibly into broad perspectives reflecting four traditional patterns of interpretation: teleological, mechanical, occultist, and mathematico-descriptive. These four modes had guided medieval accounts of heavenly phenomena, material process, and motion. The teleological explanation, prevalent in Aristotle’s natural philosophy, posited “final causes” (ends or goals toward which objects strove or attempted to become). Ancient classical atomists had emphasized strictly mechanical explanations, invoking direct material contact and collision of moving matter as agents of physical change. Traditions of astrology, magic, and alchemy embraced an occultist pattern of interpretation—citing hidden forces opaque to both sensual detection and rational understanding as explanations of various phenomena. Finally, the mathematico-descriptive approach interpreted natural phenomena according to geometric or arithmetic relationships; unlike the other three, this did not involve causal explanation of a process. Part I discusses development of the four patterns in the ancient period and their uneasy medieval relationships with each other and with basic Judaeo-Muslim-Christian exigencies of faith. Theory of the heavens follows, including the mathematico-descriptive approach of Ptolemaic astronomy, the teleological and mechanical cosmology of Aristotle, and occultist interpretations of astrologers and magicians. Part I then turns to matter and materiality, discussing differences among the mechanical philosophy of classical atomism, teleological emphases in Aristotle’s material theory, and occultist assumptions of some alchemists. Finally, Part I analyzes conceptions of motion, focusing on Aristotelian interpretations and critical commentaries thereon during the Middle Ages. Part II relates struggles of leading early-modern figures to adapt new concepts (e.g., Copernicus’ heliocentric astronomy/cosmology, Galileo’s inertial theories of motion, and Kepler’s elliptical planetary orbit) to an allegiance to two or more of the four patterns of interpretation. By this approach, it identifies decreasing dependence on teleological explanation of physical phenomena as crucial to decline of medieval interpretations of those phenomena, followed by rejection of teleology in the natural philosophy of Descartes, and subsequent fruitful confluence of the mechanical, mathematico-descriptive, and occultist patterns in the physics and cosmology of Isaac Newton.
Author: Hannah Marcus
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 022673661X
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 369
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Book Description
“Wonderful . . . offers and provokes meditation on the timeless nature of censorship, its practices, its intentions and . . . its (unintended) outcomes.” —Times Higher Education Forbidden Knowledge explores the censorship of medical books from their proliferation in print through the prohibitions placed on them during the Counter-Reformation. How and why did books banned in Italy in the sixteenth century end up back on library shelves in the seventeenth? Historian Hannah Marcus uncovers how early modern physicians evaluated the utility of banned books and facilitated their continued circulation in conversation with Catholic authorities. Through extensive archival research, Marcus highlights how talk of scientific utility, once thought to have begun during the Scientific Revolution, in fact began earlier, emerging from ecclesiastical censorship and the desire to continue to use banned medical books. What’s more, this censorship in medicine, which preceded the Copernican debate in astronomy by sixty years, has had a lasting impact on how we talk about new and controversial developments in scientific knowledge. Beautiful illustrations accompany this masterful, timely book about the interplay between efforts at intellectual control and the utility of knowledge. “Marcus deftly explains the various contradictions that shaped the interactions between Catholic authorities and the medical and scientific communities of early modern Italy, showing how these dynamics defined the role of outside expertise in creating 'Catholic Knowledge' for centuries to come.” —Annals of Science “An important study that all scholars and advanced students of early modern Europe will want to read, especially those interested in early modern medicine, religion, and the history of the book. . . . Highly recommended.” —Choice
Author: Y. Batsaki
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 0230354610
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 255
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Book Description
Locating literature at the intersection of distinct areas of thinking on the nature, scope and methods of knowledge - philosophy, theology, science, and the law - this book engages with literary texts across periods and genres to address questions of probability, problems of evidence, the uses of experiment and the poetics and ethics of doubt.
