A comparative typology of approaches to the study of the alchemy phenomenon.

Abstract

The article deals with a comparative typology of approaches to the study of the Western alchemy phenomenon in the methodological context of social philosophical research. The survey on the image transformation of the Western alchemy phenomenon in academic discourse actualizes a vision of alchemy as a phenomenon that can not be reduced to its medieval existence, and should be considered within contemporary social and philosophical context. It seems necessary to consider present-day typologies of approaches to the study of this phenomenon, and to evaluate them critically in the context of methodological principles of social philosophical investigation of the phenomenon. Today there are a number of scientific works considering approaches to the study of the alchemy phenomenon and offering a variety of its classifications. But a question of matching, comparison and systematization of these classifications remains not fully solved. A comparison of different authors’ classifications can remove certain limitations of specific typologies and draw a stereoscopic picture of the conceptual space of the alchemy phenomenon studies. Also, it is important to combine approaches within effective interdisciplinary complexes that allow to achieve new results, emphasizing the advantages and neutralizing the disadvantages of certain approaches. The approaches those are able to provide a balanced and impartial consideration of alchemy as a holistic sociocultural phenomenon on anti-reductionist, polyparadigmal and interdisciplinary basis are fundamentally important. Therefore the cultural-phenomenological and hermeneutical approaches to the study of the phenomenon of alchemy, and the related approach of Western esotericism academic studies are considered by author as those ones that can together make a methodological core of study of the phenomenon of alchemy in social philosophical dimension. At the same time, there are also fundamentally important: a general concept of alchemy as a cultural phenomenon; an impartial view inherent in the cultural and phenomenological approaches to alchemy; principles of hermeneutical analysis of alchemical texts, the broad understanding of the term “text”; an interdisciplinary nature of the approach of Western esotericism academic studies; achievements of Carl Gustav Jung, Mircea Eliade and Traditionalists in the field of understanding of alchemy spiritual basis; principles of understanding of alchemy developed in recent studies, that recognize a considerable lability of this phenomenon conceptual dimension and a possibility of its existence in contemporary society.