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Alchemy, the Noble Art, conjures up scenes of mysterious, dimly lit laboratories populated with bearded old men stirring cauldrons. Though the history of alchemy is intricately linked to the history of chemistry, alchemy has nonetheless often been dismissed as the realm of myth and magic, or fraud and pseudoscience. And while its themes and ideas persist in some expected and unexpected places, from the Philosopher's (or Sorcerer's) Stone of Harry Potter to the self-help mantra of transformation, there has not been a serious, accessible, and up-to-date look at the complete history and influence of alchemy until now.
A 400-year history of the development of alchemy in England that brings to light the evolution of the practice. 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 ...
A vivid account of the diverse intellectual landscape of the German Enlightenment, exploring radical writing between 1680 and 1720.
Recently the history of science in early modern Europe has been both invigorated and obscured by divisions between scholars of different schools. One school tends to claim that rigorous textual analysis provides the key to the development of science, whereas others tend to focus on the social and cultural contexts within which disciplines grew. This volume challenges such divisions, suggesting that multiple historical approaches are both legitimate and mutually complementary."--
The first scholarly book on Thomas Vaughan (1621–1666) draws from recent studies in Western esotericism to place his famously difficult writings in their proper context. It shows that they develop themes from a distinctively Rosicrucian synthesis of alchemy, magic, and Christian cabala. Vaughan introduced Rosicrucian documents to English readers and placed them in older philosophical contexts during the breakdown of censorship that followed the English Revolution against the old order in politics and religion. Willard’s book will appeal to students of early modern ideas about religion, science, and society as they were seen by an intelligent and eloquent outsider.
Plato’s Timaeus inspired a uniquely enduring interest across disciplines. In the centuries between its composition and the seventeenth century, scholars looked to this dialogue for answers to questions about the structure of the universe and how to live a healthy and happy life. They saw cosmology as vital to medicine and ethics; and, for them, harmony in music and architecture facilitated balance in the human soul. This interdisciplinary collection explores how the dialogue transformed the disciplines of cosmology, music, medicine, and architecture, and how new intellectual and cultural developments in turn shaped and re-contextualized interpretations of Plato’s ideas.
The Aspiring Adept presents a provocative new view of Robert Boyle (1627-1691), one of the leading figures of the Scientific Revolution, by revealing for the first time his avid and lifelong pursuit of alchemy. Boyle has traditionally been considered, along with Newton, a founder of modern science because of his mechanical philosophy and his experimentation with the air-pump and other early scientific apparatus. However, Lawrence Principe shows that his alchemical quest--hidden first by Boyle's own codes and secrecy, and later suppressed or ignored--positions him more accurately in the intellectual and cultural crossroads of the seventeenth century. Principe radically reinterprets Boyle's mo...
An illustrious team of scholars offer a rich survey of the thought of Rene Descartes; of the development of his ideas by those who followed in his footsteps; and of the reaction against Cartesianism. Epistemology, method, metaphysics, physics, mathematics, moral philosophy, political thought, medical thought, and aesthetics are all covered.
The volume offers the first large-scale study of the teaching of Descartes’s philosophy in the early modern age. Its twenty chapters explore the clash between Descartes’s “new” philosophy and the established pedagogical practices and institutional concerns, as well as the various strategies employed by Descartes’s supporters in order to communicate his ideas to their students. The volume considers a vast array of topics, sources, and institutions, across the borders of countries and confessions, both within and without the university setting (public conferences, private tutorials, distance learning by letter) and enables us thereby to reconsider from a fresh perspective the history of early modern philosophy and education.
Gives accurate and reliable summaries of the current state of research. It includes entries on philosophers, problems, terms, historical periods, subjects and the cultural context of Renaissance Philosophy. Furthermore, it covers Latin, Arabic, Jewish, Byzantine and vernacular philosophy, and includes entries on the cross-fertilization of these philosophical traditions. A unique feature of this encyclopedia is that it does not aim to define what Renaissance philosophy is, rather simply to cover the philosophy of the period between 1300 and 1650.