The Demarcation of Paracelsus’ Alchemical Tria Prima Theory As Pseudoscience

In this paper, I will argue that the current standard demarcation criteria provided by Popper and Lakatos demarcate alchemy as a pseudoscience. First, I will give a rigorous definition of pseudoscience. Then, I will provide an example of the significance of the problem of the demarcation of science and pseudoscience as it pertains to the widespread societal debate. Next, I will explain why the demarcation of alchemy is an issue that aligns with such debate, and why I will use the alchemist Paracelsus’ tria prima theory as a representative example of the issue. Afterwards, I will give Popper’s and Lakatos’ demarcation criterion. Finally, I will test the tria prima theory against both of these criteria and provide an objection and response for each test. 

First, we must distinguish between pseudoscience, science denialism, and resistance to the facts. A proposed term for all these non-scientific theories is “parascience” (Mahner 2007). Pseudoscience is a particular category of parascience that is not only non-scientific or unscientific (in direct opposition to science), but a theory that considers itself as being based on the scientific method and to have the same epistemological weight as scientific knowledge (Baigrie 1988). There are also further nuances to be considered, including the difference between good and bad science, which will be mentioned, but they will not be used as parameters for demarcating any two fields in this paper.

Actively demarcating science and pseudoscience continues to be necessary. As mentioned, science is considered to be an epistemically justified theory compared to parascience. So, supposed scientific arguments have been made for both sides of social and philosophical debates, such as creationism versus evolution. Under the larger umbrella of Creationists are those guided by literal interpretations of the Bible, who believe humans, among other organisms, could only have been created by an Intelligent Designer (the Christian God). Meanwhile, supporters of the evolutionary theory fathered by Charles Darwin believe natural selection would account for the formation of humans from animal populations. Despite the implicit or acknowledged theological basis of Creationism, some Creationists have turned to natural examples that they call scientific to prove Intelligent Design (Behe 1996). 

A historical example of the demarcation problem in practice is the demarcation of alchemy, of which the current consensus is that it is pseudoscience. Alchemy consists of both a theory of corpuscular matter and the concept of metallurgical transmutation. At the time, “chymists” (early alchemists) such as Theophrastus Bombastus von Hohenheim, otherwise known as Paracelsus, believed that alchemy was scientific and even could be used in “empirically based medicine” (Garber 30, 31). Several aspects of the practice of alchemy also seem scientific. Since medieval times, alchemists have developed and used detailed laboratory procedures. Furthermore, in the Summa perfectionis by Paul of Taranta, a text that was influential on the practice of alchemy and later chemistry for centuries, Paul aimed to set a precedent for alchemical practice that demanded experimental confirmation of theories by “contrived chemical experimentation” (Lindberg 294). Nevertheless, I will argue that alchemy should be seen as pseudoscientific in comparison to its scientific successor, chemistry. 

Note that there is some nuance to this issue, considering the blurred lines between late alchemy and early chemistry, which again points to why demarcating alchemy as a pseudoscience is a worthy pursuit. It also serves, however, as a source of error; one may confuse alchemy and chemistry. To attempt to address this, I will focus on a distinctly alchemical theory and the defense of it: Paracelsus’ tria prima theory. The tria prima are three active principles that constitute the Earth and all things: salt, sulfur, and mercury. This theory was an extension of the medieval belief that all metals were each a mixtum of sulfur and mercury (Lindberg 291; Hedesan 18). This theory was a framework for not just alchemical investigations, but matters of medicine and even metaphysics. The tria prima are an addition to his belief in the Aristotelian elements of water, earth, air, and fire, the latter of which was able to transmute and affect the tria prima. It is important to specify, though, that he saw the Aristotelian elements as approximations of the natural world, treating them more instrumentally than realistically (Roos 11).

The criteria for science that will be utilized in this paper are those of Karl Popper and Imre Lakatos, and are monocriterial, which does not make them lesser than other multicriterial ones (Hansson sec.4.6). Popper’s falsificationism claims that a theory is scientific if one can specify an observation, experimental or otherwise, that can falsify one’s claim. As others have said, according to Hansson, this ought to also include the condition that the theory is indeed rigorously tested and that “negative outcomes of the test are accepted” (Hansson sec.4.2), which is the version of falsificationism I will use. Meanwhile, Lakatos classifies a scientific theory as the culmination of a research program, or a series of conjectures and refutations that can predict novel facts (with the help of an attached heuristic). Hansson and Bryan agree that these are some of the foremost demarcation criteria in modern philosophy (Hansson sec.4; Bryan par.14-17).

By Popper’s criterion, Paracelsus’ studies of the tria prima were not scientific. According to Garber, Paracelsus believed that under the lens of the tria prima, “the creation story of Genesis could be interpreted chymically, as the successive separation of things from a [...] mysterium magnum” (Garber 31). He even popularized the idea of a homunculus, a human alchemically constructed from materials in a flask (Newman 17). Yet, he did not specify an experiment in advance that could falsify his claims that creation was the result of the transmutation of the tria prima. Also, he does not propose what the exact state of mysterium magnum was like before life. Therefore, he did not even take the steps to construct a rigorous experiment, like manipulating raw materials representing the mysterium magnum to another form, that could have suggested or denied that the tria prima brought about life.

One could object to this by arguing that the mysterium magnum existed before all other things, so Paracelsus would not have been able to find or did not believe there were raw materials representing the mysterium magnum. His theory more often had the tria prima coming into play in being “active in creating the body” (Hedesan 18). On this, Paracelsus’ writings discussed what could be perceived as two key experiments. The first was that through fire, he could isolate pure samples of the tria prima, proving or disproving their existence. The second was that he could  “extract these active principles from the body and ‘inject’ them into powerful medicines” (Hedesan 18). Whether these injections were successful in tangibly altering his patients’ health or physiology as predicted, he could prove or disprove the live activity of the tria prima. Therefore, there were experiments to falsify his claim.

In response, one must consider the experimental precision that Paracelsus was able to achieve. According to Hedesan, “alchemists were not able to obtain the ‘pure’ principles [the tria prima] in the laboratory, as there were always traces of the other principles in them” (Hedesan 19). Thus, Paracelsus’ view of fire was not correct; it could not isolate samples of any of the tria prima, suggesting that his hypothesis that the tria prima are distinct principles that are manipulated by fire was incorrect. However, it appears that instead of falsifying his claim, he falsifies an auxiliary hypothesis concerning his laboratory method. Concerning medicine, Paracelsus was a pioneer in chemical remedies and was even one of the first to describe the concept of dose toxicity (Crone 78). Yet, his reports of his medical practices based on the tria prima often attribute failures to or respond to criticisms with his lack of wealth or other factors, again suggesting his tendency to falsify auxiliary hypotheses over his theories (Crone 80, 81). Overall, these examples point to a pseudoscientific unwillingness to falsify the tria prima theory.

I would now like to move on and show how Lakatos’ criterion also indicates that the tria prima theory is not scientific. Paracelsus mentions the burning wood experiment, where he sees flame is sulfur, the smoke is mercury, and the ash is salt (Hedesan 19). This is a reinterpretation of an example from Aristotle, showing how the tria prima shaped perceptions about and problem-solving in the world for early alchemists. However, this framework is weaker than it seems. For one, Paracelsus’ statement is not internally consistent, because he also says he views fire (flame) as an element on its own, which is not sulfur (Garber 31), showing the flimsiness of the heuristic based on the tria prima. On top of this, although the system tended to be “in agreement with existing experiments” (Hedesan 19), it did not often accurately predict novel facts. Paracelsus made correct medical predictions from tria prima theory that might seem novel and radical, like that the toxic salt antimony (after alchemical modification) could treat complex diseases, but they were already steeped in existing medical tradition (Roos 28-29).

One could object that these two examples are not foundational to Paracelsus’ theory. The ‘burning wood’ experiment was “more of a rhetorical device to clarify the theory” than a true experiment, as even supporters of the tria prima theory later acknowledged (Hedesan 19). Moreover, Paracelsian medicine was influenced by a number of his other beliefs, such as the concept of the relationship between the macrocosmus, the universe, and the microcosmus, man (Del Soldato sec.4.3). The strongest example of a novel, accurate prediction Paracelsus made was that, in a way, he was sort of right that all metals and materials were mixtures of the tria prima: salt, sulfur, and mercury. In reality, numerous earth metals are indeed alloys of other metals (though not those specific principles). Also, his prediction in itself was part of a larger research program of inquiry into natural philosophy, as one can observe other kinds of “transmutations” in nature, where water and soil turn a seed into a plant, or a tree’s leaves changing colors (Lindberg 291).

To this, one must respond that Paracelsus was still wrong, for the most part; countless individual metals exist, and many exist outside the context of an alloy. Also, calling his prediction entirely novel is a stretch when the, albeit somewhat different, Aristotelian concept of the four elements coming together to form all unique materials had been around for centuries. Not only was Paracelsus off in this aspect of his prediction, but also about transmutation. Since he postulated that the salt, sulfur, and mercury in metals could supposedly be manipulated by fire, he firmly held that transmutation through alchemical recipes, such as turning another metal into gold, should be possible (Lindberg 292). Nonetheless, to this day, people have not managed to permanently transform one element into another outside of nuclear transmutation or other advanced nuclear chemistry techniques – never mind through simple alchemical techniques available to Paracelsus, such as distillation, precipitation, or crystallization. 

In this paper, I distinguished between parascience and pseudoscience to define the latter. Then, I discussed why the problem of the demarcation of science and pseudoscience is a significant issue to this day through the example of evolutionary theory versus creationism. Afterwards, I went over how historical alchemy perceived itself as a science and reviewed one of its theories: the tria prima theory. Next, I reviewed the demarcation criteria given by Popper and Lakatos and showed how each one demarcated alchemy, specifically tria prima theory, as pseudoscientific through an argument, objection, and response format.

Works Cited

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Baigrie, B.S., 1988. “Siegel on the Rationality of Science”, Philosophy of Science, 55: 435–441.

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Roberts, Bryan. “Science and Pseudoscience Overview and Transcript.” Philosophy, Logic and Scientific Method, 21 Sept. 2014, www.lse.ac.uk/philosophy/science-and-pseudoscience-overview-and-transcript/.

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Garber, Daniel. The Cambridge History of Science. Cambridge University Press EBooks. Park, Katharine, and Lorraine Daston. Cambridge University Press, 3 July 2006.

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Hedesan, Georgiana D. (2016). Theory choice in the seventeenth century: Robert Boyle against the Paracelsian Tria Prima. In E. Tobin & C. Ambrosio (Eds.), Theory choice in the history of chemical practices (pp. 17–27). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-29893-1_3​

Del Soldato, Eva, "Natural Philosophy in the Renaissance", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2023 Edition), Edward N. Zalta & Uri Nodelman (eds.), URL = <https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2023/entries/natphil-ren/>.