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Promethean Ambitions - Alchemy and the Quest to Perfect Nature (Paperback, New edition)
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Promethean Ambitions - Alchemy and the Quest to Perfect Nature (Paperback, New edition)
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In an age when the nature of reality is complicated daily by
advances in bioengineering, cloning, and artificial intelligence,
it is easy to forget that the ever-evolving boundary between nature
and technology has long been a source of ethical and scientific
concern: modern anxieties about the possibility of artificial life
and the dangers of tinkering with nature more generally were shared
by opponents of alchemy long before genetic science delivered us a
cloned sheep named Dolly.
In "Promethean Ambitions," William R. Newman ambitiously uses
alchemy to investigate the thinning boundary between the natural
and the artificial. Focusing primarily on the period between 1200
and 1700, Newman examines the labors of pioneering alchemists and
the impassioned--and often negative--responses to their efforts. By
the thirteenth century, Newman argues, alchemy had become a
benchmark for determining the abilities of both men and demons,
representing the epitome of creative power in the natural world.
Newman frames the art-nature debate by contrasting the supposed
transmutational power of alchemy with the merely representational
abilities of the pictorial and plastic arts--a dispute which found
artists such as Leonardo da Vinci and Bernard Palissy attacking
alchemy as an irreligious fraud. The later assertion by the
Paracelsian school that one could make an artificial human
being--the homunculus--led to further disparagement of alchemy, but
as Newman shows, the immense power over nature promised by the
field contributed directly to the technological apologetics of
Francis Bacon and his followers. By the mid-seventeenth century,
the famous "father of modern chemistry," Robert Boyle, was
employingthe arguments of medieval alchemists to support the
identity of naturally occurring substances with those manufactured
by "chymical" means.
In using history to highlight the art-nature debate, Newman here
shows that alchemy was not an unformed and capricious precursor to
chemistry; it was an art founded on coherent philosophical and
empirical principles, with vocal supporters and even louder
critics, that attracted individuals of first-rate intellect. The
historical relationship that Newman charts between human creation
and nature has innumerable implications today, and he ably links
contemporary issues to alchemical debates on the natural versus the
artificial.
General
Imprint: |
University of Chicago Press
|
Country of origin: |
United States |
Release date: |
August 2005 |
First published: |
August 2005 |
Authors: |
William R. Newman
|
Dimensions: |
151 x 228 x 2mm (L x W x T) |
Format: |
Paperback
|
Pages: |
352 |
Edition: |
New edition |
ISBN-13: |
978-0-226-57524-7 |
Categories: |
Books >
Science & Mathematics >
Chemistry >
General
|
LSN: |
0-226-57524-1 |
Barcode: |
9780226575247 |
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