Early Modern Atomism

本项目将探讨物质的学术理论，特别是那些源自炼金术的理论，在早期现代原子论的形成中所扮演的角色。由于17世纪标志着微粒物质理论首次获得详细实验成分的时期，并且由于许多证据来自现有的化学理论和实践，因此迫切需要学术研究来解决早期现代原子论对炼金术的特殊债务。从中世纪晚期开始，炼金术士就一直宣扬一种理论，认为金属和矿物是由微观层面上的“最小部分”或微粒组成的。这种炼金术理论本身部分地依赖于亚里士多德的物质概念，并以改良的形式传递给17世纪“机械哲学”的核心人物，如罗伯特·波义耳。正如私家侦探在其他地方所说的那样，波义耳的物质微粒理论深受维滕贝格大学医学教授丹尼尔·森纳特的影响。Sennert，反过来，是中世纪晚期炼金术粒子论传播的重要媒介，如13世纪的“Geber”完美大全所发现的那样。因此，当前的项目将包括对Sennert的微粒理论及其来源的彻底分析。这将包括对德国的短暂访问（预计三周），以确定是否有Sennert的手稿或档案材料留在那里。然而，该项目的大部分内容将包括仔细阅读Sennert的各种版本的大量作品。由于Sennert只是在出版了几部作品之后才采纳了原子论，并且在随后的版本中对他的物质理论做了重要的修改，因此收集尽可能多版本的他的作品的微缩胶片是必要的——申请人几年前就已经开始了这项任务。这项研究将导致人们对导致17世纪早期思想家（如Sennert）突然放弃物质是连续体这一神圣的四处漂泊的概念而支持原子论的力量有一个新的理解。由于塞纳特和他那一代人为“机械哲学家”的建立提供了直接的基础，对他那张神秘面孔的解释将为现代科学的起源带来重要的新启示。

This project will address the role played by scholastic theories of matter, particularly those emanating from alchemy, in the formation of early modern atomism. Since the seventeenth century marks the period when corpuscular matter-theories first acquired a detailed experimental component, and since much of the evidence was drawn from existing chemical theory and practice, there is a compelling need for scholarship to address the particular debt of early modern atomism to alchemy. From the late Middle Ages, alchemists had been professing a theory that metals and minerals were composed of "minimal parts" or corpuscles at the microlevel. This alchemical theory was itself partially dependent on Aristotelian concepts of matter which it passed on, in modified form, to central figures in the formulation of the seventeenth-century "mechanical philosophy," such as Robert Boyle. As the P.I. has elsewhere argued, Boyle's corpuscular theory of matter was heavily influenced by the work of Daniel Sennert, a professor of medicine at the University of Wittenberg. Sennert, in turn, was an important intermediary in the transmission of late medieval alchemical corpuscularism, as found in the thirteenth-century Summa perfectionis of "Geber." The current project will therefore consist of a thorough analysis of Sennert's corpuscular theory and its sources. This will include a short visit (three weeks are projected) to Germany, in order to determine if any manuscript or archival materials of Sennert's remain there. The bulk of the project, however, will consist of a close reading of Sennert's extensive works - in their various editions. Since Sennert adopted atomism only after publishing several works, and made important modifications to his matter theory in successive editions, it is imperative to gather microfilms of as many versions of his works as possible - a task already begun several years ago by the applicant. This research will result in a new understanding of the forces that led early seventeenth-century thinkers such as Sennert suddenly to abandon the hallowed peripatetic notion that matter was a continuum in favor of atomism. Since Sennert and his generation provided the direct foundation upon which the "mechanical philosophers" would build, an explanation of his voile face would cast important new light on the origins of modern science.