Walter Charleton’s Matter Theory: How Scientific Societies and Politics Influenced his Works

Result code in IS VaVaI

<a href="https://www.isvavai.cz/riv?ss=detail&h=RIV%2F49777513%3A23330%2F20%3A43959434" target="_blank" >RIV/49777513:23330/20:43959434 - isvavai.cz</a>

Result on the web

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DOI - Digital Object Identifier

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Result language

angličtina

Original language name

Walter Charleton’s Matter Theory: How Scientific Societies and Politics Influenced his Works

Original language description

The last decades, research in the field of history of alchemy is increasing rapidly. Many historians of science study the relationships of alchemy to medicine, philosophy, religion and theories of matter. Particularly, the vitalistic corpuscular theories are of interest to researchers, as they can help us understand how the alchemical theories have influenced the development of both chemistry and other disciplines. The last years, one of the most important actors of these investigations is Walter Charleton (1619-1707). Although Charleton was a physician, many historians of alchemy study him, because not only did he create his own particle theory, but he also was one of the first English scholars who dealt with the corpuscular theories and translated the works of Pierre Gassendi (1592-1655) and Jan Baptiste van Helmont (1580-1644) introducing and making the theories of matter widely known to the wider English speaking public. Charleton is a controversial figure among the historians because of the differences which exist in his particle theory. On the one hand, the majority of historians support that his theory belongs to mechanistic philosophy, for the reason that he was influenced by Pierre Gassendi and was a supporter of the Epicurean philosophy. On the other hand, the last years some historians, who have studied his works, like Piyo Rattansi, explain that his theory can be considered vitalistic, as he was studying the alchemical theories and was inspired by them. The purpose of this presentation is to analyze these two different historical opinions explaining why both views are correct and to investigate the reasons of why his corpuscular theory constitutes a controversial subject providing a different historical opinion. From my point of view Charleton was never a vitalistic or mechanical philosopher, but he was based on these two distinctive dogmas, so as to be able to build his own theory. The reasons why he attacked in Paracelsus or van Helmont are probably political and economical and I am going to explain them. Last but not least, I will present his position in the College of Physicians and in the Royal Society, as I believe that these two societies maybe were the most important reasons of why he abandoned or attacked in some alchemists.

Czech name

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Czech description

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Type

O - Miscellaneous

CEP classification

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OECD FORD branch

60301 - Philosophy, History and Philosophy of science and technology

Project

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Continuities

S - Specificky vyzkum na vysokych skolach

Publication year

2020

Confidentiality

S - Úplné a pravdivé údaje o projektu nepodléhají ochraně podle zvláštních právních předpisů