I pasted part of an essay by author and practitioner John Michael Greer
where he states that the terms used during the Renaissance were not
"science" but the "mechanical philosophy" and not "pseudo-science" but the
"chemical philosophy". Might be worth considering.
- James
"At that time, three broad currents of thought dominated the scene in
Europe. One of these was based on what was left of medieval Christian
tradition. Protestant Reformation and Catholic Counter Reformation had left
little of the old spirit of synthesis intact; the need to defend theological
claims against the scathing attacks of rationalists and sectarian enemies
forced all sides in the religious disputes of the time to harden their
boundaries. Still, a more or less conservative Christianity still remained
as a powerful intellectual force in most of Europe. Because of its
connections with the medieval philosophical movement known as Scholasticism,
it was often called the "scholastic philosophy."(9)
The second current had more complex origins. In Classical times, some
traditions of thought argued for a view of the world based entirely on the
evidence of the senses and the operations of logic. Some of these,
particularly as reflected through the writings of Aristotle, became
ancestral to a medieval school of philosophy known as Nominalism, which held
similar beliefs.(10) In the Renaissance, Nominalist ideas spread in many
directions and took a wide range of forms. All this ferment coalesced toward
the end of the Renaissance with the rise of a new, radically materialist
philosophy of nature, armed with an equally new experimental method that
allowed questions about nature to be put to practical tests. We now call
this new philosophy modern science; in the late Renaissance, it was called
the "mechanical philosophy."(11)
Then there was the third current - that complicated blend of Cabala,
Platonism, magic and alchemy that we now call Renaissance Hermeticism.(12)
The Renaissance discovery of ancient texts of magical philosophy, above all
the books attributed to Hermes Trismegistus, sparked an explosive revival of
magic. Over the next few centuries, philosophers of magic such as Marsilio
Ficino and Cornelius Agrippa found ways to fit the whole body of Western
occult tradition into a more or less cohesive whole. The resulting system
was a major influence on Renaissance culture and remained influential,
especially in England and Germany, as the Renaissance waned. Because of its
heavily alchemical emphasis in the late Renaissance, its most common name at
the time was the "chemical philosophy."(13)
These three currents - Christian orthodoxy, emergent natural science, and
Renaissance Hermeticism - did not develop in isolation from one another, and
many of the writers and scholars of the age held views drawn from more than
one. It has even been argued, notably by the late Dame Frances Yates, that
much of what became the mechanical philosophy had its roots in the
Renaissance revival of magic.(14)"
http://www.lastwizards.com/index.php?subaction=showfull&id=1131329479&archiv
e=1153724296&start_from=&ucat=2&do=archives
On 11/13/07 9:17 AM, "Ty Falk" <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> And it is not a "genuine science" by the standards of today, but
> rather a precursor. And in that vein pseudo is an appropriate prefix
> despite the connotations. What term would you then suggest? How about
> "pre-science" or "antescience"?
>
> On Nov 13, 2007 11:33 AM, Harry Roth <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>> "Pseudo" means "not genuine, an imitation." It does indeed have negative
>> meaning.
>>
>> Harry Roth
>>
>> Ty Falk wrote:
>>
>>
>>> I think we're getting at the same things but are becoming hung up on
>>> semantics. The prefix of pseudo isn't a derogatory assignment, but
>>> rather an acknowledgment of the spiritual component, differentiating
>>> it from common scientific practice. Besides, I'm not sure how you are
>>> seeing that my stating that the practice of alchemy being the
>>> framework for many "modern" sciences is my excluding all but the
>>> spiritual. If anything, it's a nod to both.
>>>
>>> On Nov 13, 2007 10:57 AM, Harry Roth <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>> Ty Falk wrote:
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>> I am aware of some of the
>>>>> work being done in practical alchemy, such as the work with whitegold
>>>>> in reversing cellular decay (still not sure what I think about that)
>>>>> but I call it a pseudoscience only as it has evolved into chemistry
>>>>> and physics.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>> I guess you prove my point that you are seeing alchemy as a purely
>>>> spiritual endeavor, since you say that practical alchemy "evolved" into
>>>> science. The term "pseudoscience" privileges science as somehow more
>>>> valid, yet alchemy not only came before science historically but
>>>> continues to exist and be practiced to this day by practical alchemists
>>>> who combine the physical and spiritual aspects of alchemy rather than
>>>> exiling them from one another as many contemporary spiritual alchemists
>>>> do. I am talking about lab work uniting the spiritual and the physical
>>>> as is described in old alchemical texts, not stuff like ORMUS, or
>>>> practice that at least works with the fundamentals of alchemy, like
>>>> Armand Barbault did in his spagyrical medicines.
>>>>
>>>> I would not use the prefix "pseudo" unless I were setting out to be
>>>> inflammatory. But if that prefix can be applied to anything, it is to
>>>> science as a pseudoalchemy, no? Some alchemists even make such an
>>>> argument. Fulcanelli argues that the alchemical operations that science
>>>> adopted were part of what he calls "archemy," which is using alchemical
>>>> means without any alchemical knowledge, spirit, attention to time of
>>>> year, etc. Fulcanelli was a physicist writing in the 1920s, so I would
>>>> think that if anyone would identify alchemy as a pseudoscience or even
>>>> as some nice old toothless granny of science, it would be him.
>>>>
>>>> I think if you decide to discuss alchemy only as a spiritual
>>>> undertaking, that is one thing. I think it would be an honest endeavor
>>>> to say that outright, although to me that is a limited, truncated
>>>> version of alchemy, regardless of whether you are focusing on
>>>> symbolism. Practical alchemists make much use of the symbolism of
>>>> alchemy and draw connections between symbols that will be missed by
>>>> someone who interprets them merely spiritually. To say that alchemy has
>>>> been superseded by science is like arguing that the everyday practice of
>>>> rabbinic law has been superseded by the mere belief in Jesus Christ as
>>>> one's personal savior. I would argue that they are two completely
>>>> different things that are related only superficially.
>>>>
>>>> Harry Roth
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>
>
>
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