期刊名称：Hyle : International Journal for Philosophy of Chemistry
印刷版ISSN：1433-5158
出版年度：2006
卷号：12
期号：1
页码：149-153
出版社：HYLE Publications, Karlsruhe and University of Karlsruhe
摘要：The chemist is a horrible, morally cor-rupt person, and there does not seem to be any single term awful enough to de-scribe him. At least that was Libavius' opinion of those involved in chemical experimentation. This scholar even asked, "What is more abject than a chemist." This short quotation from the re-viewed book should illustrate its ap-proach. We find here an attempt to ad-dress significant points concerning al-chemy and chymistry in the turbulent development of ideas during a historical epoch known as the Scientific Revolu-tion. It should be emphasized that Mo-ran successfully draws, in the format of a small book, the multifaceted picture of an epoch in which not only science, but also European society as a whole, en-dured deep changes under conditions that were often stormy. The Thirty Years War was one such dramatic peak. Concerning Libavius' opinion of chem-ists cited above, we will leave it to the reader to find the explanation of this seemingly strange attitude. In the book we meet this German scholar repeated-ly. Although the reviewed book does not consider itself to be classified among the 'top scholarly works', Moran's introduc-tory sentences already indicate that his book is not simply easy reading for a Sunday afternoon either. Basic knowledge of history in general, and of alchemy and chymistry in particular, is necessary for understanding it. The au-thor begins with discussing whether or not alchemy can be regarded as 'scien-tific' with reference to the revolution in science that occurred during the six-teenth and seventeenth centuries. In other words: Was alchemy a science. Past opinions varied broadly, and this has remained so until recent times. Two extremes can be recalled here. On one side there appeared a very strict con-demnation of alchemy by Nicholas Lemery, one of the personalities that al-so appear in the reviewed book. Contra-ry to Lemery, about two centuries later, the chemist Justus von Liebig (1803-73) did not find anything wrong with al-chemy and did not perceive a difference between this science and his contempo-rary chemistry. Moran's book follows the vicissitudes of alchemy, which had never been included into university cur-ricula, though it had permeated Europe-an society not only in the discussed epoch
