Defining the Meanings of Magic
Andreas Libavius and the Semantic Construction of Paracelsian Magia
In: DaphnisSearch for other papers by Bruce Moran in
Current site
Google Scholar
Abstract
In his critique of Paracelsian magia, Andreas Libavius (1555–1616) focused on the taxonomic differences between forms of magic, and concentrated especially on the conceptual semantic structures that underpinned those taxonomies (the sorts of language, associations, and meanings used to support them). In one text in particular, his Examen Philosophiae Novae (1615), he centered on the semantic roots of several key terms in the Paracelsian vocabulary (namely, knowledge, art, nature, the meaning of making, and the notion of harmony) and sought to dislocate them from their claimed associations and to transplant them into realms of fiction and the diabolical. In particular, Libavius paid attention to the ways in which Paracelsian definitions related to magia elided natural and supernatural, and impinged upon realms of the divine. In contrast, he insisted on a rule-based system of definitions, structured upon Aristotelian principles, that made the language of natural magic, viewed as natural knowledge, codifiable.
Purchase
Buy instant access (PDF download and unlimited online access):
Institutional Login
Log in with Open Athens, Shibboleth, or your institutional credentials
Personal login
Log in with your brill.com account
-
Alt, Peter-André, Jutta Eming, Tilo Renz, and Volkhard Wels, eds. Magia daemoniaca, magia naturalis, zouber: Schreibweisen von Magie und Alchemie in Mittelalter und Früher Neuzeit (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2015).
-
Arbatel de Magia Veterum (Basileae, 1575).
-
Binsfelt, Johannes. Dissertatio theologica de superstitione quam in catholica academia Trevirensi ad sacram licentiam, in publicam disputationem dat R.D. Ioannes Binsfelt […] inseritur magici libelli, de magnetica vulnerum curatione (Treviris: excudebat Henricus Bock, 1615).
-
Bulang, Tobias. “Geneology of Knowledge and Delegitimation of Universities: the Pseudo-Paracelsian Aurora Philosophorum.” Early Science and Medicine 24 (2019), 473–484.
-
Camenietzki, Carlos Ziller. “Jesuits and Alchemy in the Early Seventeenth Century: Father Johannes Roberti and the Weapon-Salve Controversy.” Ambix 48 (2001), 83–101.
-
Croll, Oswald. Osualdi Crollii Veterani Hassi Basilica Chymica […] (Francofurti: apud Claudium Marnium et heredes Joannis Aubrii, 1609).
-
Dorn, Gerhard. Clavis Totius Philosophiae Chymisticae: per quam potissima philosophorum dicta referantur […] (Herbornae: Christophorus Corvinus, 1594).
-
Dorn, Gerhard. Schlüssel der Chimistischen Philosophy: mit welchem die heimliche und verborgene Dicta und Spruch der Philosophen eröffnet und auffgelöset werden […] (Strassburg: in Verlegung Lazari Zetzneri, 1602).
-
Drebbel, Cornelius. Ein Kurtzer Tractat von der Natur der Elementen […] (Leyden: Henrichen von Haestens, 1608).
-
Epistola Fratris Rogerii Baconis, De Secretis Operibus artis et naturae, et de nullitate magiae. Opera Iohannis Dee Londinensis e pluribus exemplaribus castigate olim, et ad sensum integrum restituta.[…] (Hamburgi: ex Bibliopolio Frobeniano, 1618).
-
Findlen, Paula. “Building the House of Knowledge: The Structures of Thought in late Renaissance Europe.” In The Structure of Knowledge: Classifications of Science and Learning Since the Renaissance, ed. Tore Frängsmyr (Berkeley: University of California Office for History of Science and Technology, 2001), 5–52.
-
Forshaw, Peter. “‘Paradoxes, Absurdities, and Madness’: Conflict over Alchemy, Magic and Medicine in the Works of Andreas Libavius and Heinrich Khunrath.” Early Science and Medicine 13 (2008), 53–81.
-
Gehr, Damaris Aschera. “Magie und Alchemie in der paracelsistischen Schrift […] Arbatel De magia veterum (Basel, 1575).” In Alchemie – Genealogie und Terminologie, Bilder, Techniken und Artefakte: Forschung aus der Herzog August Bibliothek, eds. Petra Feuerstein-Herz and Ute Frietsch (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2021), 49–74.
-
Goclenius, Rudolf. Tractatus de magnetica curatione vulneris citra ullam et superstitionem, et dolorem, et remedii applicationem (Marburg: ex officina Hutwelckeriana, 1610).
-
Grafton, Anthony. Magus: The Art of Magic from Faustus to Agrippa (Cambridge Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2023).
-
Grell, Ole Peter. “The Acceptable Face of Paracelsianism: the Legacy of Idea Medicinae and the Introduction of Paracelsianism into Early Modern Denmark.” In Paracelsus: The Man and his Reputation, His Ideas and the Transformation, ed. Ole Peter Grell (Brill: Leiden, 1998), 245–267.
-
Hannaway, Owen. The Chemists and the Word: The Didactic Origins of Chemistry (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1975).
-
Hartmann, Johannes. Disputationes Chymico-Medicae: pleraeque sub praesidio Joh. Hartmanni, Med. D. et Chymiatriae in Academia Marpurgensi Professoris Ordinarii […] (Marburg: Paulus Egenolphus, 1611).
-
Hedesan, Georgiana D. “Fire, Vulcanus, Archeus, and Alchemy: A Hybrid Close-Distant Reading of Paracelsus’s Thought on Active Agents.” Ambix 71 (3) (2024), 271–300.
-
Kahn, Didier, and Hiro Hirai, eds. Pseudo-Paracelsus: Forgery and Early Moden Alchemy, Medicine and Natural Philosophy (Leiden, Boston: Brill, 2021).
-
Keller, Vera. Cornelius Drebbel (1572–1633): Fame and the Making of Modernity, Dissertation (Department of History, Princeton University, 2008).
-
Keller, Vera. “Drebbel’s Living Instruments, Hartmann’s Microcosm, and Libavius’s Thelesmos: Epistemic Machines Before Descartes.” History of Science 48 (2010), 39–74.
-
Kobert, Rudolf. Eigenes aus dem Zweiten Jahrhundert des Bestehens der Medizinischen Fakultät zu Rostock. Ein Beitrag zur Kulturgeschichte des Refomationszeitalters (Stuttgart: Verlag von Ferdinand Enke, 1907).
-
Kühlmann, Wilhelm and Joachim Telle, eds. Oswaldus Crollius De Signaturis Internis Rerum. Die lateinische Editio princeps (1609) und die deutsche Erstübersetzung (1623) (Stuttgart: Franz Steiner, 1996), Einleitung.
-
Libavius, Andreas. Rerum chymicarum epistolica forma ad philosophos et medicos quosdam in Germania excellentes descriptarum liber primus […] secundus (Francofurti: impensis Petri Kopffij, 1595).
-
Libavius, Andreas. Singularium Andreae Libavii […] pars prima […] (Francofurti: impensis Petri Kopffij, 1599).
-
Libavius, Andreas. Probabilis investigatio caussarum physicarum, aliumque, globi Archimedaei novi, et instrumenti musici, per se absque evidente morore mobilium […] Ex relatione conjecturisque CL. Iohannis Hartmanni Philos. Med. Et Chymiae apud Marburgenses Doctoris […] exercitii Gymnastici caussa proposita in Illustri Casimiriano apud Coburgenses […] (Coburgi: Typis Casparis Bertschii, 1612).
-
Libavius, Andreas. “Hepadis Hermeticae Monas Quarta. Epitome Elementarii Cornelii Drebelii Belgae cum declaratione coniecturali.” In Syntagmatis selectorum undiquaque et perspicue traditorum alchymiae arcanorum tomus […] secundus (Francofurti: impensis Petri Kopfii, 1613), 361–379.
-
Libavius, Andreas. Examen philosophiae novae, quae veteri abrogandae opponitur […] (Frandofurti ad Moenum: sumptibus Petri Kopffij, 1615).
-
Moran, Bruce T. “Axioms, Essences, and Mostly Clean Hands: Preparing to Teach Chemistry with Libavius and Aristotle.” Science and Education 15 (2006), 173–187.
-
Moran, Bruce T. Andreas Libavius and the Transformation of Alchemy: Separating Chemical Cultures with Polemical Fire (Sagamore Beach: Science History Publications, 2007).
-
Moran, Bruce T. “Defending Aristotle, Constructing Chymia: Libavius, Logic, and the German Schools.” In Natural Knowledge and Aristotelianism at Early Modern Protestant Universities, eds. Pietro Daniel Omodeo and Volkhard Wels (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2019), 235–252.
-
Moran, Bruce T. “Court Authority and the University: Networks, Recipes, and Things- in-the-Making vs. the Abstractions of Made Things.” Ambix 68 (2–3) (2021), 135–153.
-
Paracelsus. Astronomia Magna: Oder die gantze Philosophia Sagax der grossen und kleinen Welt […], Michael Toxites ed. (Frankfurt am Mayn: Martin Lechler in Verlegung Hieronymi Feyerabends, 1571).
-
Pseudo-Paracelsus. Aurora thesaurusque philosophorum Theophrasti Paracelsi […] accessit Monarchia Physica per Gerardum Dorneum (Basel, 1577).
-
Severinus, Petrus. Idea medicinae philosophicae (Basileae: ex officina Sixti Henricpetri, 1571).
-
Shackelford, Jole. A Philosophical Path for Paracelsian Medicine. The Ideas, Intellectual Context, and Influence of Petrus Severinus: 1540–1602 (Copenhagen: Museum Tusculanum Press, 2004).
-
Thurneysser zum Thurn, Leonhard. Bebaiōsis agōnismu. Das ist Confirmatio Concertationis […] (Berlin: im Grauwen Closter, 1576).
-
Thurneysser zum Thurn, Leonhard. Historia und Beschreibung Influentischer/ Elementischer und Natürlicher Wirckungen/ Aller fremden unnd Heimischen Erdgewechssen […] (Berlin: bey Michael Hentzsken, 1578).
-
Thurneysser zum Thurn, Leonhard. Melisā kai hermēneia. Das ist ein Onomasticum und Interpretatio oder auszfuhrliche Erklerung […] (Berlin: Nikolaus Voltz, 1583).
-
Thurneysser zum Thurn, Leonhard. Magna Alchymia […] Item Onomasticum und Interpretatio oder aussführliche Erklerung etliche frembde und […] unbekante Nomina […] (Cölln: durch Johannem Gymnicum, 1587).
-
Valleriani, Matteo. “The Epistemology of Practical Knowledge.” In The Structures of Practical Knowledge, ed. Matteo Valleriani (Cham: Springer, 2017), 1–19.
-
de Vries, Lyke. “The Rosicrucian Reformation: Prophecy and Reform at Play in the Rosicrucian Manifestos.” Daphnis 48 (2020), 270–295.
-
de Vries, Lyke. Reformation, Revolution, Renovation (Brill: Leyden, 2021).
-
de Vries, Lyke. “Protecting Academia and Religion: Andreas Libavius’s Criticism of a General Reformation.” Ambix 69 (2022), 34–48.
-
Walker, D.P. Spiritual and Demonic Magic from Ficino to Campanella (Notre Dame, London: University of Notre Dame Press, 1975).
-
Wels, Volkhard. “Die Frömmigkeit der Rosenkreutzer-Manifeste.” In Ideengeschichte um 1600. Konstellationen zwischen Schulmetaphysik, Konfessionalisierung und hermetischer Spekulation, eds. Wilhelm Schmidt-Biggemann and Friedrich Volhardt (Stuttgart-Bad Cannstadt: Frommann-Holzboog, 2017), 173–207.
-
Wels, Volkhard. “Melanchthon’s Logic and Rhetoric and the Methodology of Chemical Knowledge in Libavius’s Alchymia.” In Natural Knowledge and Aristotelianism at Early Modern Protestant Universities, eds. Pietro Daniel Omodeo and Volkhard Wels (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2019), 11–27.
| All Time | Past 365 days | Past 30 Days | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Abstract Views | 410 | 370 | 14 |
| Full Text Views | 14 | 10 | 2 |
| PDF Views & Downloads | 38 | 28 | 2 |
Defining the Meanings of Magic
Andreas Libavius and the Semantic Construction of Paracelsian Magia
In: DaphnisSearch for other papers by Bruce Moran in
Current site
Google Scholar
PubMed
Abstract
In his critique of Paracelsian magia, Andreas Libavius (1555–1616) focused on the taxonomic differences between forms of magic, and concentrated especially on the conceptual semantic structures that underpinned those taxonomies (the sorts of language, associations, and meanings used to support them). In one text in particular, his Examen Philosophiae Novae (1615), he centered on the semantic roots of several key terms in the Paracelsian vocabulary (namely, knowledge, art, nature, the meaning of making, and the notion of harmony) and sought to dislocate them from their claimed associations and to transplant them into realms of fiction and the diabolical. In particular, Libavius paid attention to the ways in which Paracelsian definitions related to magia elided natural and supernatural, and impinged upon realms of the divine. In contrast, he insisted on a rule-based system of definitions, structured upon Aristotelian principles, that made the language of natural magic, viewed as natural knowledge, codifiable.
| All Time | Past 365 days | Past 30 Days | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Abstract Views | 410 | 370 | 14 |
| Full Text Views | 14 | 10 | 2 |
| PDF Views & Downloads | 38 | 28 | 2 |
