Full Description
Contemporary scientific disciplines such as chaos and complexity theory, artificial intelligence, and cognitive science treat themselves as new fields of inquiry, but many of these ideas can be traced back to Hermeticism, the European intellectual tradition sparked by the rediscovery of the Corpus Hermeticum and Platonic texts in the 15th century.Building a map of the progression of scientific thought across centuries and continents, Leon Marvell examines the ancient roots of Hermeticism, its rise during the Renaissance, and its suppression during the scientific revolution of the Enlightenment.Offering a full reconsideration of the history of science from Newton to the present day as well as a Platonic-Hermetic perspective on modern technology, Marvell reveals the pattern that connects the sciences, philosophy, and ancient knowledge and opens a potentially rich field of inquiry for 21st-century science.
Contents
Foreword by Arthur Versluis, Ph.D. Preface to the New Edition Acknowledgments 1 Ideal Objects and Their Forebears 2 Spirit of the Beehive: Hermetic Resonances in Cybernetics, Artificial Intelligence, and Cyberspace 3 Body Doubles 4 Metaphysical Geometry, Alien Attractors, and the Shape of the World Soul 5 The Gnostic Alchemy of Robert Fludd 6 The Gnostic Leibniz, or What Is It Like to Be an Atom? Notes Bibliography Index
