False philosophers

Use in the book

The passage does not attack one homogeneous class. Khunrath first excepts a few highly learned and sometimes practically experienced men, whom he nevertheless accuses of haughty envy because good things have come from others. He then turns to the larger vagabond crowd: people who have left ordinary trades, driven by money-greed and sloth, yet boast of labour and experience. The two accusations differ. Learning or practical familiarity can coexist with envy; numerous manipulations can coexist with lack of philosophical grounds.

Their diagnostic trait is instability. On p. 170 they change their opinion of the Stone's matter repeatedly, even within a week, and rush towards any new gold-crier. When challenged on fundamentals they respond with accounts of hand-grips, much labour and impressive experience, adding bluster when not believed. Page 172 states the missing requirement: reasonable observations of what the work produces, joined to philosophical reflection.

The invective is conspicuously classed and abrasive. “Ragamuffin rabble,” the troop of light-armed men and the coarse beasts are the author's hostile descriptions, not information from which the reader can reconstruct a reliable social census. He partially breaks the tirade by saying Christian compassion makes pity more fitting than quarrelling, although the margin continues to call the opponents ignorant, idle dregs.

The earlier calumniant on p. 149 gives a related rule of conduct: the slanderer should attend to the completion of his own labour rather than demand to know how far another has come. Taken with the later satire, the false philosopher is both an inadequate judge of Nature and a destructive participant in controversy. The book's critique concerns how claimed knowledge is used as well as what has actually been done.

Places to read

1. 1599 p. 149The calumniator is told to mind his own work rather than another’s progress
2. 1599 p. 168 · marginLoß-sophi ridicules the philosophical title
3. 1599 p. 169The attack distinguishes envious learned men from the larger wandering crowd
4. 1599 p. 170Frequent changes of matter and readiness to follow gold-criers mark instability
5. 1599 p. 171Boasts of operations replace a reply on natural fundamentals
6. 1599 p. 172Observation and reflection are required, while the tirade turns towards professed pity

Translation in this edition

Leave Loß-sophi visible instead of inventing an English pun that would claim the same lexical structure. Translate the classed and animalizing abuse without endorsing it. “Laborant” is not everywhere a condemnatory word; the negative judgment comes from the conduct and setting of these particular passages.