Martín M. Morales at 09:35, 15 January 2020

2020-01-15T09:35:45Z

Martín M. Morales: Created page with "{{AKC Bibliography entries |Name(s)=Lucie Čermáková |Title=Athanasius Kircher and Vegetal Magnetism: Analogy as a Method |Printer=Brill |Language=eng |Contained in=Early Sc..."

2020-01-15T09:33:42Z

Created page with "{{AKC Bibliography entries |Name(s)=Lucie Čermáková |Title=Athanasius Kircher and Vegetal Magnetism: Analogy as a Method |Printer=Brill |Language=eng |Contained in=Early Sc..."

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{{AKC Bibliography entries
|Name(s)=Lucie Čermáková
|Title=Athanasius Kircher and Vegetal Magnetism: Analogy as a Method
|Printer=Brill
|Language=eng
|Contained in=Early Science and Medicine, Volume 23: Issue 5-6, 487–508
|Bibliographic level=Paper in journal
|Digitization=https://doi.org/10.1163/15733823-02356P05
}}
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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 |Contained in=Early Science and Medicine, Volume 23: Issue 5-6, 487–508
 |Bibliographic level=Paper in journal
 |Digitization=https://doi.org/10.1163/15733823-02356P05
 }}
 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.

Bibliography:AKC Bibliography 0392 - Revision history

Martín M. Morales at 09:35, 15 January 2020

Martín M. Morales: Created page with "{{AKC Bibliography entries |Name(s)=Lucie Čermáková |Title=Athanasius Kircher and Vegetal Magnetism: Analogy as a Method |Printer=Brill |Language=eng |Contained in=Early Sc..."