Alchemy Wikipedia. Alchemy is a philosophical and protoscientific tradition practiced throughout Europe, Africa and Asia. It aimed to purify, mature, and perfect certain objects. 12n 1 Common aims were chrysopoeia, the transmutation of base metals e. The perfection of the human body and soul was thought to permit or result from the alchemical magnum opus and, in the Hellenistic and western tradition, the achievement of gnosis. 2 In Europe, the creation of a philosophers stone was variously connected with all of these projects. In English, the term is often limited to descriptions of European alchemy, but similar practices existed in the Far East, the Indian subcontinent, and the Muslim world. In Europe, following the 1. Renaissance produced by the translation of Islamic works on science and the Recovery of Aristotle, alchemists played a significant role in early modernscience4 particularly chemistry and medicine. Islamic and European alchemists developed a structure of basic laboratory techniques, theory, terminology, and experimental method, some of which are still in use today. However, they continued antiquitys belief in four elements and guarded their work in secrecy including cyphers and cryptic symbolism. L. Wittgenstein, A lecture on Ethics, Philosophical Review, January 1965, 89I will mention another experience straight away which I also know and which. Definition of physical. The use of physical in physicalism is a philosophical concept and can be distinguished from alternative definitions found in the literature. Their work was guided by Hermetic principles related to magic, mythology, and religion. 5Modern discussions of alchemy are generally split into an examination of its exoteric practical applications and its esoteric spiritual aspects, despite the arguments of scholars like Holmyard6 and von Franz7 that they should be understood as complementary. The former is pursued by historians of the physical sciences who examine the subject in terms of early chemistry, medicine, and charlatanism, and the philosophical and religious contexts in which these events occurred. The latter interests historians of esotericism, psychologists, and some philosophers and spiritualists. The subject has also made an ongoing impact on literature and the arts. Despite this split, which von Franz believes has existed since the Western traditions origin in a mix of Greek philosophy that was mixed with Egyptian and Mesopotamian technology,7 numerous sources have stressed an integration of esoteric and exoteric approaches to alchemy as far back as Pseudo Democrituss first century ADOn Physical and Mystical Matters Greek Physika kai Mystika. 8EtymologyeditThe word alchemy was borrowed from Old Frenchalquemie, alkimie, taken from Medieval Latinalchymia, and which is in turn borrowed from Arabical kmiy. The Arabic word is borrowed from Late Greekchmea, chma ,9 with the agglutination of the Arabic definite articleal. 1. This ancient Greek word was derived from1. Greek name for Egypt, Chmia, based on the Egyptian name for Egypt, kme hieroglyphic khmi, lit. The Medieval Latin form was influenced by Greek chymeia meaning mixture and referring to pharmaceutical chemistry. 1. HistoryeditAlchemy covers several philosophical traditions spanning some four millennia and three continents. These traditions general penchant for cryptic and symbolic language makes it hard to trace their mutual influences and genetic relationships. One can distinguish at least three major strands, which appear to be largely independent, at least in their earlier stages Chinese alchemy, centered in China and its zone of cultural influence Indian alchemy, centered on the Indian subcontinent and Western alchemy, which occurred around the Mediterranean and whose center has shifted over the millennia from Greco Roman Egypt, to the Islamic world, and finally medieval Europe. Chinese alchemy was closely connected to Taoism and Indian alchemy with the Dharmic faiths, whereas Western alchemy developed its own philosophical system that was largely independent of, but influenced by, various Western religions. It is still an open question whether these three strands share a common origin, or to what extent they influenced each other. Hellenistic Egyptedit. Ambix, cucurbit and retort of Zosimos, from Marcelin Berthelot, Collection des anciens alchimistes grecs 3 vol., Paris, 1. The start of Western alchemy may generally be traced to ancient and Hellenistic Egypt, where the city of Alexandria was a center of alchemical knowledge, and retained its pre eminence through most of the Greek and Roman periods. 1. Here, elements of technology, religion, mythology, and Hellenistic philosophy, each with their own much longer histories, combined to form the earliest known records of alchemy in the West. Zosimos of Panopolis wrote the oldest known books on alchemy,citation needed while Mary the Jewess is credited as being the first non fictitious Western alchemist. They wrote in Greek and lived in Egypt under Roman rule. Mythology Zosimos of Panopolis asserted that alchemy dated back to Pharaonic Egypt where it was the domain of the priestly class, though there is little to no evidence for his assertion. 1. Alchemical writers used Classical figures from Greek, Roman, and Egyptian mythology to illuminate their works and allegorize alchemical transmutation. 1. These included the pantheon of gods related to the Classical planets, Isis, Osiris, Jason, and many others. The central figure in the mythology of alchemy is Hermes Trismegistus or Thrice Great Hermes. His name is derived from the god. Thoth and his Greek counterpart Hermes. Hermes and his caduceus or serpent staff, were among alchemys principal symbols. According to Clement of Alexandria, he wrote what were called the forty two books of Hermes, covering all fields of knowledge. 1. The Hermetica of Thrice Great Hermes is generally understood to form the basis for Western alchemical philosophy and practice, called the hermetic philosophy by its early practitioners. These writings were collected in the first centuries of the common era. Technology The dawn of Western alchemy is sometimes associated with that of metallurgy, extending back to 3. BC. 1. 7 Many writings were lost when the emperor. Diocletian ordered the burning of alchemical books1. Alexandria AD 2. Few original Egyptian documents on alchemy have survived, most notable among them the Stockholm papyrus and the Leyden papyrus X. Dating from AD 3. These writings lack the mystical, philosophical elements of alchemy, but do contain the works of Bolus of Mendes or Pseudo Democritus, which aligned these recipes with theoretical knowledge of astrology and the classical elements. 2. Between the time of Bolus and Zosimos, the change took place that transformed this metallurgy into a Hermetic art. 2. Philosophy Alexandria acted as a melting pot for philosophies of Pythagoreanism, Platonism, Stoicism and Gnosticism which formed the origin of alchemys character. 2. An important example of alchemys roots in Greek philosophy, originated by Empedocles and developed by Aristotle, was that all things in the universe were formed from only four elements earth, air, water, and fire. According to Aristotle, each element had a sphere to which it belonged and to which it would return if left undisturbed. 2. The four elements of the Greek were mostly qualitative aspects of matter, not quantitative, as our modern elements are. True alchemy never regarded earth, air, water, and fire as corporeal or chemical substances in the present day sense of the word. The four elements are simply the primary, and most general, qualities by means of which the amorphous and purely quantitative substance of all bodies first reveals itself in differentiated form. 2. Later alchemists extensively developed the mystical aspects of this concept. Alchemy coexisted alongside emerging Christianity. Lactantius believed Hermes Trismegistus had prophesied its birth. St Augustine later affirmed this in the 4th 5th centuries, but also condemned Trismegistus for idolatry. 2. Examples of Pagan, Christian, and Jewish alchemists can be found during this period. Most of the Greco Roman alchemists preceding Zosimos are known only by pseudonyms, such as Moses, Isis, Cleopatra, Democritus, and Ostanes. Others authors such as Komarios, and Chymes, we only know through fragments of text. After AD 4. 00, Greek alchemical writers occupied themselves solely in commenting on the works of these predecessors. 2. By the middle of the 7th century alchemy was almost an entirely mystical discipline. 2. Unity and Diversity in Science. Descartes, Correspondence ed. Ch. Adam and G. Milhaud, Paris 1. Vol. I, to Mersenne, 2. December 1. 63. 0 p. About this making useful experiment I have nothing to say after what Verulam Bacon has written about it, namely, without being too curious to research into all the small particulars touching on a matter, mainly one must make general collections of all those things that are most common and which are very certain and which can be known without expenditure such as, that all colchea are rotated in the same direction, and to know if this is the same after the equinox that the bodies of all animals are divided into three parts, caput, pectus, and ventrem, and also other examples since these are those which serve infallibly in the search for truth. For more detailed items, it is impossible that one does not get many superfluous ones, and even false ones, because one does not know the truth of things before one makes them the experiments. Op. Mersenne, 1. 0 May 1. You have informed me elsewhere that you know eople who are pleased to work for the advancement of the sciences, even of their desire to make all arts of experiments at their own expense. If any one of this disposition would want to undertake to write a history of celestial appearances, according to the method of Verulam Bacon, and if without putting forward neither any reason nor any hypothesis, he would describe for us exactly the heavens as it appears now, which position each fixed star is in respect to its neighbors, which difference, either of size or of color or of clarity or of more or less twinkling, etc. item, if this corresponds to what the ancient astronomers have written of it and what difference he has found in it since I do not at all doubt that the stars do not ever change their relative positions because one deems them fixed. And he goes on about comets and their orbs, and about ecliptics and apogees of planets, very useful to the public will relieve me of a lot of labour, but I do not hope that someone else will do it. My translation. See also Martha Ornstein, The Role of Scientific Societies in the Seventeenth Century, Chicago 1. Descartes Baconianism. See also Leibnizs praise of Bacon, and its roots in the influence of Bacons doctrine of prejudice on him, in Elliss preface to Thoughts on the Nature of Things Works, op cit., Vol. We do well to think highly of Verulam, i. Bacon, says Leibniz, for his hard sayings have deep meaning in them. And the hard sayings are criticisms of the scholastics, whom Leibniz admired all his life, alone in the world of radicalists whose contempt for everything mediaeval was constantly mounting. Spinoza, however, dismissed Bacon as confused and dogmatic, especially regarding his doctrine of prejudice of the cause of error see his first letter to Oldenburg, Works, Dover, New York, 1. Vol. II, p. 2. 78. Nevertheless, one should note that he dismisses both Bacon and Descartes in the same letter, and expressly at Oldenburgs invitation. His final verdict of Bacon is, that whatever valuable he has said, has since been better said by Descartes. Concerning the dispute regarding the French philosophers and their following Bacon or Descartes, see C. C. Gillispies and L. Pearce Williams contributions to Critical Problems in the History of Science ed. M. Clagett, Madison 1. R. Emersons Peter Gay and the Heavenly City, in Journal Hist. Ideas 2. 8 1. 96. There is, of course, the idea that science is both inductive and deductive, or both compositive and resolutive, or both synthetic and analytic these are three sets of more or less synonymous, though always intolerably vague, terms. This idea may be methodological, and it may be epistemological. See J. H. Randall Jr., The School of Padua, Padova 1. J. W. N. Watkins, Hobbes System of Ideas, London 1. Section 9. See also Justus von Liebig, Induktion und Deduktion, 1. F. Engels, Anti Diihring. There is a paper by G. Buchdahl on Descartes Anticipation of a Logic of Scientific Discovery, in Scientific Change ed. A. C. Crombie, New York 1. N. R. Hanson there. I find Buchdahls summary of his problem in his second paragraph p. Still, I suppose Hanson is right when he says p. Buchdahl has rendered us a service in revealing as myth eaten the picture of Descartes as a naive Cartesian rationalist. To say that Descartes was not quite a Cartesian, as Hanson rightly says, is not the same as to say that Marx was not a Marxist. For, what Marx meant was that he was at liberty to change his mind, whereas what Hanson means is much more interesting. When one has a major theory which one assumes to be true, one may accept only conclusions from that major theory, or also other truths which ought to follow from, or at least harmonize with, that major theory, even though we may not know how. And, of course, two truths must harmonize but ones major theory may turn out to be false after all. In this sense, we may say, our false major theory did. And so, what Hanson says to Buchdahl is that quoting instances from Descartes which are, say, inductive deductive in character, does not prove that Cartesianism is inductive deductive, but merely that Descartes could think out of character while believing that he was thinking in character. Buchdahls error is part of a thesis of A. C. Crombies Robert Grosseteste and the. Origins of Experimental Science 1. Oxford 1. 95. 3. There Grossetestes philosophyis linked with the view of the school of Padua, and the view of that school is declaredto be the one both widely preached and widely practiced in the seventeenth century. If this were so, then the books lengthy title would indeed read, Robert Grossetesteas the Origin of Experimental Science. The thesis is expressed at the end of the. Introduction p. 1. Grosseteste took the double, inductive deductive proceduredescribed by Aristotle in the Posterior Analytics, he says. He found the inductiveside illustrated by the writings of the medical school and the deductive side illustrated by the writings of Euclid, Ptolemy, and others. Grosseteste was favoured byunusual opportunities to make his influence felt. With Grosseteste, Oxford becamethe first centre of the methodological revolution with which modern science began. On the continent, Grossetestes influence may be traced with certainty in several writers,and there is evidence to suggest that the methodology of the Oxford school exerted adecisive influence on European science as a whole. Paris, he admits, was alsoinfluential, and was somewhat independent of Oxford. But Oxford took the lead. There is no doubt that from the time of Grosseteste the experimental science beganto appear in centre after centre. In his Conclusion Crombie follows Randall in claiming that Padua was the mostimportant 1. Accordingto Randall the Paduan teacher Paulus Venetus was sent by his Order to Oxfordin 1. Paris, and this, we are led to believe, was the worlds most significant, world shaking,travel grant. In his various encyclopedic writings he fully though critically expounded. Oxford ideas on logic and dynamics, says Crombie in a manner of proof. Those who need criticism of such a proof, can consult N. Gilbert, Galileo and the. School of Padua, Journal of the History of Philosophy 1 1. Benjamin. Nelsons The Modern Revolution in Science and Philosophy, Boston Studies, vol. Ill,especially p. So much for Crombies claim of Grossetestes influence on Padua. As to Paduasinfluence on posterity, he tells us that, for instance, p. Francis Bacons methodof discovering the form was precisely the double procedure worked out during thepreceding four centuries. And p. 3. 02, His method was mentioned and used bymore than one seventeenth century scientist, particularly in England. For example,Harvey this is no slip of Crombies pen but a point supported by a very scholarlyreference, Hooke, and Boyle all referred to it in the midst of their investigations. Not only Bacons method was precisely the double procedure, Galileos was too,it seems p. The originality of Galileos method lay precisely in his effectivecombination of mathematics with experiment. To connect the observation with atheory Crombie adds p. Galileo described precisely the double procedure ofresolution and composition which his predecessors in Oxford and Padua had madefamiliar. Precisely Bacon, Galileo, everybody, is precisely Grosseteste.