Science towards cultural memory – (about) alchemy discourse(s)

Abstract

The article concerns dynamic aspects of scientific discourse understood as a domain of communication subject to cultural influences. The problem, inspired by Michel Foucault’s concept of archaeology of scientific reason, is presented through the example of alchemy, a specific phenomenon co-creating a scientific discourse both in the past and in the present. The relation of science with its discursive aspect (in various ways) with the past, and thus also with memory is undeniable, no matter how you consider the issue. This relation also affects the perception of science as such and scientific discourses, which is still an interesting field of observation. The discourse(s) on alchemy and its very status in the universe of communication confirm the dynamics of science and the discourses belonging to or co-constituting it, but in no way do they confirm the thesis of the teleological (in the sense of improving development) history of communication, including scientific communication.