Epistemic Change: Stages of Early Modern Alchemy

这个项目将产生一部关于早期现代炼金术知识历史的专著。虽然炼金术的悠久历史在许多研究中进行了调查，但仍然需要分析早期现代炼金术的不同阶段和动态。该项目将论证学术抱负对早期现代炼金术的变革至关重要。某些炼金术士注意到，炼金术的接受和认可首先受到其魔法内容的阻碍，同时也受到其技术和经验实践的阻碍。因此，他们尝试的变革深刻地改变了理论与实践以及精神与技术之间的密切关系。赫尔佐格奥古斯特图书馆的炼金术版画特别适合研究这些变化。收藏的约1900张炼金术版画是早期现代炼金术的代表。它们被归类为自己的学科领域，并在德国研究基金会（2014-6）的一个项目中进行了全面分析，该项目特别考虑了术语、人物、写作类型和图像。拟议的研究项目将以编目项目为基础。本文将从五个方面系统地分析大约90个来源：1)炼金术士对自己和他们的炼金术士同行的概念；2)作者、编辑和印刷商的授权做法；3)写作体裁的变化；4)使用图表表示术语和功能过程，5)使用炼金术和魔法符号。因此，该项目的目的是通过社会历史、概念历史、话语分析和媒体历史的方法论手段来构建早期现代炼金术的知识历史。

This project will result in a monograph on the history of knowledge of early modern alchemy. Whilst the long history of alchemy is investigated in numerous studies, there is still a need to analyse the different stages and dynamics of early modern alchemy. The project will argue that academic ambitions were crucial for changes in early modern alchemy. Certain alchemists noticed that alchemy's acceptance and recognition was hindered above all by its magical content but also by its technical and empirical practices. They therefore attempted changes which profoundly modified the characteristically close relationship of theory and practice, as well as spirituality and technology. The alchemical prints of the Herzog August Library are particularly suitable for research into these changes. The holdings of about 1900 alchemical prints are representative of early modern alchemy. They were catalogued as their own subject area and were comprehensively analysed in a project of the German Research Foundation (2014-6), which gave particular consideration to terms, people, writing genres and images. The proposed research project will be based on the cataloguing project. It will systematically analyse about 90 sources by focusing on five aspects: 1) the conceptions which alchemists had of themselves as well as of their fellow alchemists; 2) the practices of authorisation by authors, editors and printers; 3) the changes in writing genres; 4) the use of diagrams for terms and functional processes and 5) the use of alchemical and magical symbols. Aim of the project is thus, to structure the history of knowledge of early modern alchemy by the methodological means of social history, conceptual history, discourse analysis and the history of media.