The Anatomy of Vegetation: Transmutation, Vivification, Artificial Life, Palingenesis in Early Modern Natural Philosophy

PN-III-P1-1.1-TE-2021-0403

Our project proposes the investigation of a 17th century-early 18th century discipline called “science of vegetation.” This discipline, at a first glance, seems to be concerned with the study of plants but its final aim is to inquire into the fundamental processes of nature and to discover the transformations taking place in natural bodies endowed with sensitive life. This novel discipline attracted practitioners inspired by the traditions of alchemy, natural magic, natural history and other experimenters bound together not by a common theoretical background but rather by a shared methodology of experimentation, an instrumental approach, bottom-up oriented. This new science was a complex phenomenon that was characterized by two main features. On one hand, it was opposed to the Aristotelianism and scholasticism of the medieval universities (although in many ways it encompassed their principles) and, on the other hand, it was founded on a process of empirical investigation of nature using new methods (observation, experiments, measurements, the use of instruments such as the microscope etc.).

We will investigate published and unpublished material containing observations, experiments, but also explanations and theoretical considerations dealing with the transformation taking place in vegetal bodies. Key figures are 17^th and early 18^th century naturalists, such as Kenelm Digby, Robert Boyle, Nathaniel Highmore, Nehemiah Grew, Robert Hooke, John Woodward. All these naturalists are rarely treated together and most of the time with theoretical questions in mind. Quite often they are classified according to a particular matter theory or tradition (such as Aristotelian vs Paracelsian). We will look at their texts as records of inquiries based on a remarkable amount of shared knowledge, arguing that this epistemic background has more to do with the practices and the epistemology of experimentation than matter-theories or the formulation of causal mechanism and explanation. Therefore, this project will investigate a corpus of texts studied in the history of philosophy in a different key offered by new developments in the history of science regarding practices and the use of experiment (Dupré 2017; Valleriani 2017; Leong 2018). Key to our project is a network of alchemists, natural magicians, artisans and naturalists that qualified their work as belonging to this new “science of vegetation” (Digby 1661; Grew 1682). This project will focus on natural investigations and experimental practices that were targeted at manipulating vegetable matter in order to transform inferior instances into superior ones, the creation of artificial life, or even the resurrection of dead matter (such was the case of palingenesis). In addition, we will inquire how plants were used as inferior particulars with the goal of generating ameliorative results for the human being (prolongation of life, health and moral improvement).