A01=Lawrence Principe
Alchemical symbol
Alchemy
Alkahest
Aqua fortis
Arnobius
Atheism
Atomism
Author_Lawrence Principe
Basil Valentine
Betty Jo Teeter Dobbs
Carneades
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Chrysopoeia
Corpuscularianism
Criticism
Cupellation
Deism
Elias Ashmole
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Etymology
Explanation
Geber
George Starkey
God
Good and evil
Henry More
Henry Oldenburg
Historiography
Hypothesis
Illustration
Impenetrability
Jacques Derrida
Joseph Glanvill
Leviathan and the Air-Pump
Literature
Lynn Thorndike
Magnum opus (alchemy)
Natural magic
Natural philosophy
Nicolas Flamel
Novum
Occam's razor
Paracelsus
Phenomenon
Philalethes
Philosopher
Philosophy
Positivism
Pseudo-Geber
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Ramon Llull
Religion
Robert Boyle
Robert Fludd
Roger Bacon
Romanticism
Saducismus Triumphatus
Scholasticism
Scientific revolution
Skepticism
Socinianism
Spirit
Superiority (short story)
The Philosopher
The Sceptical Chymist
Themistius
Theology
Thomas Willis
Thought
Tincture (heraldry)
Treatise
Writing
Product details
- ISBN 9780691050829
- Weight: 482g
- Dimensions: 152 x 235mm
- Publication Date: 08 Oct 2000
- Publisher: Princeton University Press
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Paperback
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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 most famous work, The Sceptical Chymist, to show that it criticizes not alchemists, as has been thought, but "unphilosophical" pharmacists and textbook writers. He then shows Boyle's unambiguous enthusiasm for alchemy in his "lost" Dialogue on the Transmutation and Melioration of Metals, now reconstructed from scattered fragments and presented here in full for the first time.
Intriguingly, Boyle believed that the goal of his quest, the Philosopher's Stone, could not only transmute base metals into gold, but could also attract angels. Alchemy could thus act both as a source of knowledge and as a defense against the growing tide of atheism that tormented him. In seeking to integrate the seemingly contradictory facets of Boyle's work, Principe also illuminates how alchemy and other "unscientific" pursuits had a far greater impact on early modern science than has previously been thought.
Lawrence M. Principe is Assistant Professor in the Department of Chemistry and the Institute for the History of Science, Medicine, and Technology at The Johns Hopkins University.
