National Science Library of Georgia

Promethean ambitions

Newman, William Royall.

Promethean ambitions alchemy and the quest to perfect nature / [electronic resource] : William R. Newman. - University of Chicago Press, c2004. - 1 online resource (xv, 333 p., [8] p. of plates) : ill. (some col.)

Includes bibliographical references and index.

List of Illustrations; Acknowledgments; A Note On Terminology; Abbreviations; Introduction: From Alchemical Gold to Synthetic Humans: The Problem of the Artificial and the Natural; Chapter One: Imitating, Challenging, and Perfecting Nature: The Arts and Alchemy in European Antiquity; Chapter Two: Alchemy and the Art-Nature Debate; Chapter Three: The Visual Arts and Alchemy; Chapter Four: Artificial Life and the Homunculus; Chapter Five: The Art-Nature Debate and the Issue of Experiment; Afterword: Further Ramifications of the Art-Nature Debate; References; Index.

In an age when the nature of reality is complicated daily by advances in bioengineering, cloning, and artificial intelligence, it is easy to forget that the ever-evolving boundary between nature and technology has long been a source of ethical and scientific concern: modern anxieties about the possibility of artificial life and the dangers of tinkering with nature more generally were shared by opponents of alchemy long before genetic science delivered us a cloned sheep named Dolly. In Promethean Ambitions, William R. Newman ambitiously uses alchemy to investigate the thinning boundary between.

9780226577135 (electronic bk.) 0226577139 (electronic bk.)


Science, Renaissance.
Alchemy--History.
Arts, Renaissance.
Alchemy.
History, Medieval.
History of Medicine.
Nature.
Chemistry.
Science.
Sciences de la Renaissance.
Alchimie--Histoire.
Arts de la Renaissance.
SCIENCE--History.
Alchemie.
Natuurwetenschappen.
Naturwissenschaften.
Kunst.
Alchemie.
Chemie.
Natur.


Electronic books.

Q125.2 / .N49 2004eb

509.024

2004 K-651 WZ 54 / N556p 2004
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