Paracelsus on Erfahrung and the Wisdom of Praxis

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Not only did Paracelsus censure the logic of Aristotelians, but also their Godless approach to questions about nature. He declared that Aristotle was “a heathen whose work had rightly been condemned repeatedly in church councils. In this essay the

author elucidates the more salient features of Paracelsus’s epistemology, and draws parallels between Paracelsus’s notion of experientia (Erfahrung) and the more recent treatment of that topic that Gadamer offers. The author discusses Paracelsus’s educational metaphor, elaborates on Paracelsus’s creation myth and explores the mysterious doctrine of signatures before closing in on Paracelsus’s discussion of the relationship between theory, practice, and experience.