The Powers of Heaven and Earth: The Concept of Dunamis from the Ancient Mediterranean to the Early Modern Atlantic World

Project Summary/Abstract This project investigates the long history of the concept of dunamis in the Western intellectual tradition from its earliest emergence as a technical term in Hippocratic medicine to denote the ontology of substances, and to do so with a focus on plants. Translated as faculty, potentiality, or power, dunamis (δύναμης) signified the innate power in substances that directed them to develop and function in a particular way, according to their fundamental nature. The concept continued to play an important role through the Arabic and Latin Middle Ages and well into the early modern period, underlying a wide range of causal explanations in medicine, natural philosophy, theology, and psychology. Despite its fundamental and longstanding place in the Western tradition, however, dunamis has yet to be properly understood in its development and use over time. In general, scholars have not traced its meaning beyond their field or era of specialization, and inconsistency in the translation of dunamis from the original Greek to Arabic and especially to Latin have further hindered recognition – but at the same time provide evidence of its varied and widespread presence in these intellectual traditions. The project first delves into ancient understanding of dunamis in the nature and substance of plant materials, then examines the medieval Arabic and Latin investigation of dunamis in plants through the practice of alchemy and astrology in the Abbasid Empire (750-1258CE) and the Latin West, as these were fields that sought to understand the different powers in plant substances and their heavenly influences. Finally, the project examines how these ideas impacted agricultural practices in medieval Al- Andalus (Islamic Spain, 711-1492CE) and traces that impact on the Americas under the Spanish Empire (1493-1898). Thus, despite its focus on the history of an idea, this project is not solely an intellectual history. Rather, its examination of dunamis in plants allows for a two-pronged approach to the topic and the source material. It will investigate not only the philosophical foundations and import of the concept, but also its practical applications and impact on plant cultivation. Primary sources for data collection will include treatises in medicine and natural philosophy as well as practical works such as farming manuals, herbals, formularies, and almanacs. The specific aim of the project is to produce a monograph of six chapters that will be submitted to a university press for review and publication. The monograph will not only highlight the importance of dunamis over the longue durée, but in doing so will challenge existing norms and paradigms of scholarship in the history of science and medicine by encouraging interdisciplinarity, disrupting traditional binaries – of modern versus “primitive,” science versus medicine, East versus West – and thus fostering inclusivity.