Traditions of Analysis and Synthesis

Description

This open access book provides a fresh perspective on analysis and synthesis across several areas of inquiry. The two operations form a primary basis of modern laboratory science, ranging from the spectrographic analysis used in practically every scientific discipline today, to the naming of entire disciplines, such as synthetic organic chemistry. Despite their acknowledged significance, however, the history of analysis, synthesis, and their relations over the longue durée is poorly understood. Several volumes have been devoted to the history of analysis and synthesis in the sense that premodern mathematicians and philosophers used the terms, but very little work has been done on the tradition of material decomposition and recomposition and its relationship to mathematics and philosophy. The present volume brings together scholars in the history of medicine, mathematics, philosophy, chemistry, and alchemy to explore the ways in which these multiple disciplines understood and used analysis and synthesis as experimental, justificatory, and conceptual tools. Contents About the Editors Chapter 1: Introduction: Traditions of Analysis and Synthesis 1.1 The Ancient Geometrical and Philosophical Traditions 1.2 Analysis and Synthesis as Paired Operations in Chemistry 1.3 Analysis as Testing 1.4 Conflated, Transferred, and Inverted Traditions of Analysis and Synthesis References Chapter 2: The Dark Side of Sunthesis? Fraud and Substitution in Graeco-Roman Pharmacology 2.1 Introduction 2.2 The Ancient Art of Pharmacological Substitutions 2.3 Adulteration 2.3.1 Types of Ancient Drug Adulteration Involving Mineral Ingredients 2.3.2 Methods of Fraud Detection 2.4 Conclusions References Chapter 3: Spagyria, Scheidung, and Spagürlein: The Meanings of Analysis for Paracelsus 3.1 A Greek Origin for Spagyria? 3.2 The Significance of “Spagyria” and “Scheidung” in Paracelsus’s Work 3.3 Spagyria, Spagürlein, and Saigerprozess 3.4 Conclusion Bibliography Chapter 4: Chymistry Goes Further: Sensible Principiata and Things Themselves Over the Longue Durée 4.1 Introduction: Charging Down the Blind Alley? 4.2 Background: From Paracelsian Spagyria to Sensual Philosophy 4.3 Prima Mixta, Principiata, and Res Ipsae 4.4 Philosophical and Rational Chymistry 4.5 Stahl and the Stahlians 4.6 Conclusion: Chymistry Goes Further References Chapter 5: Philosophical Methods of Analysis and Synthesis from Medieval Scholasticism to Descartes and Hobbes 5.1 Resolution and Composition in Medieval Scholasticism 5.2 Early Modern Scholastics 5.3 Descartes on Analysis and Synthesis 5.4 Hobbes on Analysis and Synthesis References Chapter 6: A Fresh Look at Newton’s Method of Analysis and Synthesis 6.1 Introduction 6.2 Newton on Analysis and Synthesis 6.2.1 Drafts of Qu. 23 6.2.2 Newton and Chymists’ Decomposition 6.2.3 Logic 6.3 The French and Decompositional Analysis in the Eighteenth Century 6.3.1 Condillac and Analysis 6.4 A New Concept of Analysis in Optics References Chapter 7: Descartes, Leibniz, and Newton on Analysis and Synthesis 7.1 The Early Reception of Book VII of Pappus’s Collectiones Mathematicae 7.2 Descartes on Analysis and Synthesis 7.2.1 Ancient and New Analysis and Synthesis 7.2.2 The Pappus Problem 7.2.3 Angle Trisection 7.2.4 Descartes and the Lens-Grinders 7.3 Leibniz on Analysis and Synthesis 7.3.1 The Characteristica Universalis and the New Mathematical Analysis 7.3.2 Transcendental Curves 7.3.3 Constructions 7.3.4 Leibniz and the Engineers 7.3.5 Ancient and New Analysis and Synthesis 7.4 Newton on Analysis and Synthesis 7.4.1 Ancient and New Analysis 7.4.2 The Elegance of Ancient Geometry 7.4.3 Postulates as Mechanical Constructions 7.4.4 Newton and the Gaugers 7.5 Concluding Remarks Abbreviations References Chapter 8: Knowing Diseases and Medicines Forward and Backward: Analysis and Synthesis from Galen to Early Modern Academic Medicine 8.1 Introduction 8.2 Galen’s Works as Sources for “Analysis” and “Synthesis” 8.2.1 Teaching Methods 8.2.2 Geometry, Architecture, and Testing 8.2.3 Philosophical Demonstration and Reasoning from Effects to Causes or Principles 8.2.4 Analysis in Anatomical Method and Practice 8.2.5 Testing and Composition of Medicines or Drugs 8.3 Some Ancient and Medieval Elaborations and Debates 8.3.1 Medieval Arabic Medical Sources 8.3.2 Medieval Latin Sources 8.4 Leoniceno, Da Monte, Fernel, and Argenterio: Analysis in Commentary, Teaching, and Some Practice from the Early to Mid-Sixteenth Century 8.4.1 Leoniceno: Humanist Recovery of Galenic Analysis and Synthesis 8.4.2 Da Monte and the Analytical Order of Galenic Medicine 8.4.3 Fernel’s Diagnostic Analysis from Symptoms to the Seats of Diseases and Postmortem Dissections 8.4.4 Argenterio Against Galenic Pretensions, But in Favor of Analysis, Anatomical Localization, and Postmortems 8.5 Analysis in the Lecture Hall and at the Bedside in Early Modern Leiden 8.5.1 Analysis and Synthesis in Clinical Teaching and Postmortem Dissections at Leiden, 1636–1658 8.5.2 Making New Knowledge About Consumption (Phthisis) 8.6 Conclusions References Chapter 9: Cutting Through the Epistemic Circle: Analysis, Synthesis, and Method in Late Sixteenth- and Early Seventeenth-Century Anatomy 9.1 Introduction 9.2 Meanings of Anatomy in the Sixteenth Century: Image and Text 9.3 Varolio: Anatomy as Discovery vs. Anatomy as the Resolution of Final Causes 9.4 Anatomy as Artificial Analysis of the Parts: Du Laurens on Anatomical Pedagogy 9.5 Anatomy in Padua around the Turn of the Seventeenth Century 9.6 Casserius: Anatomical Analysis United with Philosophical Synthesis 9.7 Conclusion References Chapter 10: Taxis and Texture: Johann Daniel Major (1634–1693) on Spirits, Salts, and the Limits of Analysis 10.1 Introduction: Taxis, Cartesianism and the Limits of Analysis 10.1.1 The Origin of Major’s Concept of Taxis 10.2 Querying Analysis 10.2.1 Questioning Principles in the Publishing Circle of Schultze 10.2.2 The Pragmatic and Provisional Identity of Simple Bodies 10.2.3 Texture 10.3 Spirits and Salts 10.3.1 The Suffering of the Giants 10.3.2 The Battle of Acid and Alkali 10.3.3 Testing Salts 10.3.4 Describing Salts 10.4 Conclusion: The Order of Things Bibliography Manuscript Hamburg Primary Secondary Chapter 11: Phenomena and Principles: Analysis–Synthesis and Reduction–Deduction in Eighteenth-Century Experimental Physics 11.1 Introduction 11.2 Experimental Physics Described in the Encyclopédie 11.3 Experimental Physics in Paris and the Case of Dufay 11.4 Principles, Causes, and Experimental Approach 11.5 Seventeenth-Century Roots 11.6 A Brief Look at Newton 11.6.1 Reduction-Deduction vs. Analysis-Composition References Chapter 12: Analysis and Induction as Methods of Empirical Inquiry 12.1 Introduction 12.2 Early Modern Notions of Analysis, Induction, and Discovery 12.3 Eighteenth-Century Works on Applied Logic 12.4 Kant’s Notions of Analysis and Induction 12.5 Nineteenth-Century Developments 12.6 Analysis and Synthesis in Knowledge Generation 12.7 Conclusion References Chapter 13: From Chemical Analysis to Analytical Chemistry in Germany, 1790–1862 13.1 Introduction 13.2 Secondary Literature 13.3 Analytical Chemistry 13.4 Reagents 13.5 Qualitative and Quantitative Analysis 13.6 Analytical Chemistry and Rigor 13.7 Conclusion References Chapter 14: Questioning the Symmetry Between Analysis and Synthesis in Chemical Practices 14.1 Analysis as Art: The Pragmatist Model of Diderot’s Encyclopédie 14.2 The Intellectualist Model and the Reform of Chemical Language 14.3 Synthesis as a Way of Knowing Through Making 14.4 Synthesis and Rational Materialism 14.5 Synthesis as Artful Design 14.6 Diverging Ontological Assumptions 14.7 Conclusion References Chapter 15: Contesting the Musical Ear: Hermann von Helmholtz, Gottfried Weber and Carl Stumpf Analyzing Mozart 15.1 Introduction 15.2 Experimental Sensory Physiology: Helmholtz Analyzing K. 618 15.3 Music Theory: Gottfried Weber Analyzing K. 465 15.4 An Experimental-Experiential Trajectory: Stumpf’s Analysis of K. 361 15.5 Musical Analysis in Three Different Contexts References