Alexander SchŸtz: Die Wahrheit entdecken. Garcia da Orta und die
âGesprŠche Ÿber die einfachen HeilmittelÔ (Goa 1563)
The âColloquies on the simples and drugs of IndiaÔ by
Garcia da Orta, published in Goa in 1563, are an inquiry into South Asian
materia medica and an important Portuguese contribution to Renaissance herbal
literature. The dialogue indicates a fundamental interest in the quest
for truth, emphasizing the separation of true from false or vague statements in
the description of various plants and vegetable, animal and mineral products of
the East Indies. As lectures on the writings of Aristotle and his commentators
formed the bases of education at Spanish universities in the 16th century, the
current scholar concept of truth at that time derived from Aristotelian
philosophy in which scientific truth is taken to arise mainly from syllogistic
proof, definition and noetic intuition. Simultaneously another notion of truth
emerged, referring to itself in terms of âdiscoveryÔ and âexperienceÔ. The
abundance of unknown phenomena and the strangeness of the exotic flora and
fauna had demonstrated that the ability to make true statements in the field of
natural history depended largely on sense perception and the collection of
information. Both of these two ways to knowledge are required to characterize,
compare and classify new objects or processes by differentiating them into
their accidental, specific and diagnostic properties. This kind of truth gains
its validity from authentic and documentated observation of individual beings;
it has to be detected by research on natureÕs morphological diversity and by
application of heuristic methods. After giving an outline of OrtaÕs life, the
structure of the âColloquiesÔ and their reception in Europe, the article tries
to identify the plants and drugs discussed and finally concentrates on an
exposition of the Aristotelian and the discovery-oriented concept of scientfic
truth.
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