Article:

Visuelle Erkenntnis. Zum Bildverständnis des Hermetismus in der Frühen Neuzeit

The borderline between scientific knowledge and imagination isn’t as clear as it was believed for a long time. If we look back to the origins of modern scientific thought we can see how close visual arts and scientific thought used to be. A gaze at the pictorial cosmos of the hermetics shows how important visuality was for epistemological issues. Considering picture-writing, hermetic diagrams and alchemistic emblems one can understand the crucial role of Renaissance imagery for the development of scientific thought. It shows the heuristic power of image production and makes clear that the hermetic concept of visuality can be seen as a forerunner of modern ideas about scientific models.