Article ID: CBB418681726

Athanasius Kircher and Vegetal Magnetism: Analogy as a Method (2018)

unapi

During the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, plants were the object of a primarily descriptive approach: naturalists were concerned mainly with collecting and classifying. When confronted with the splendour of great herbals and florilegia, one can easily overlook the works which deal with plants from a more theoretical or philosophical perspective. This paper examines a chapter on vegetal magnetism in Athanasius Kircher’s treatise Magnes sive de arte magnetica. My analysis shows how Kircher uses the analogy with magnets to describe the various features of plants. He uses analogy as an epistemological tool. In Kircher’s view, analogy is not merely an illustration, it also helps him to show how plants with all their more-or-less peculiar morphological and physiological properties can be included in the whole order of creation.

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Article Fabrizio Baldassarri; Oana Matei (2018) Manipulating Flora: Seventeenth-Century Botanical Practices and Natural Philosophy. Introduction. Early Science and Medicine: A Journal for the Study of Science, Technology and Medicine in the Pre-modern Period (pp. 413-419). unapi

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https://data.isiscb.org/isis/citation/CBB418681726/

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Authors & Contributors
Funk, Holger
Baldassarri, Fabrizio
Valentino, Danilo
Tassanee Alleau
Mirren, Helen
Čermáková, Lucie
Concepts
Plants
Botany
Medicine
Metaphors; analogies
Natural philosophy
Pharmacy
Time Periods
16th century
17th century
Renaissance
Early modern
18th century
Places
Italy
Europe
Turin (Italy)
Americas
Byzantium
Greece
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