PubMed · 11626376
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R J Martin-Aragón Adrada. 1970. [Not Available].. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/11626376/
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I evaluate Kusch's arguments that everyday and scientific psychological benefits are made true by the institutional facts about the people to whom they are applied. I conclude that institutional facts are among the truth-makers of such beliefs, and that this is a very significant point to have made, but that they are unlikely to be the sole such truth-makers.
The ancient philosopher Theophrastus (c.371-285 BC) described a gemstone called lyngurium, purported to be solidified lynx urine, in his work De lapidibus ('On Stones'). Knowledge of the stone passed from him to other classical authors and into the medieval lapidary tradition, but there it was almost always linked to the 'learned master Theophrastus'. Although no physical example of the stone appears to have been seen or touched in ancient, medieval, or early modern times, its physical and medicinal properties were continually reiterated and elaborated as if it did 'exist'. By the seventeenth century, it began to disappear from lapidaries, but with no attempt to explain previous authors' errors since it had never 'existed' anyway. In tracing the career of lyngurium, this study sheds some light on the transmission of knowledge from the classical world to the Renaissance and the changing criteria by which such knowledge was judged.