Why was Alchemy Considered a Pseudoscience? Paracelsianism and the Controversies between the Scholars of the 16th and 17th Centuries

Authors: Elli P

DOI: 10.23880/phij-16000230

Volume 5, Issue 1

Abstract

This paper has two main goals: firstly, to display the controversies between the physicians, natural and alchemical philosophers of the Scientific Revolution; and, secondly, to explain the factors which contributed in considering alchemy a pseudoscience. Through the study of primary and secondary sources as well as the comparative history it will be shown that the traditional historical view about the delay of the Chemical Revolution, according to which alchemy should not be considered a “science” and did not participate in the Scientific Revolution, was not created by the historians, but by the same alchemical philosophers of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, as they began to reject basic principles of alchemy by emphasizing it as a pseudoscience. Many factors contributed to this accusation, but this paper supports that one of the most important was the development and spread of Paracelsianism and the polemical debate existed among the Paracelsians (Paracelsus’s followers) and antiParacelsians (Paracelsus’s attackers) about the nature and scientificity of alchemy, as many supporters and opponents of Paracelsus labeled each other pseudo-Christians, pseudo-philosophers and pseudo-chemists. 

Keywords: Paracelsianism; Anti-Paracelsians; Iatrochemistry; Scientific communities; Pseudoscience

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