Science or “Sad Trash”? Aristotelian Lineages in the Historiography of Animal Magnetism

Abstract

I will highlight how different lineages are sketched in order to position animal magnetism in terms of philosophical tradition. This, in turn, is often employed as a strategy to interpret animal magnetism, whether sceptically or sympathetically. Furthermore, this philosophical framing serves the purpose of assessing the innovation of animal magnetism (or lack thereof) compared to the natural philosophy of the past. Therefore it was used both in literature that was favour-able towards animal magnetism, and in works that expressed more sceptical positions. A series of specific historiographical questions emerges: whether animal magnetism was to be considered as rooted more in Aristotelianism or in Platonism; in either case, which medieval and Renaissance authors transmitted ancient ideas that found their way into the theory of animal magnetism (and it is not by chance that some overlap with Victor Frankenstein’s items of reading); and finally how such philosophical backgrounds inflected the understanding of the ‘new’ theory and of its value.