Editing Frances Yates (section)

===Scholarly critiques===
It is now said that Yates founded a [[paradigm]], or gave out a [[grand narrative]]. In those terms, a so-called '''Yates paradigm''' (sometimes '''Yates Thesis'''), her work is contested freely. This is a view that [[Wouter Hanegraaff]] has put forth, starting with Yates as the scholar first to treat Renaissance hermeticism, integrated with [[Rosicrucianism]], as a coherent aspect of European culture. He has stated it as an attractive paradox, the autonomous esotericism helping give birth to the scientific mentality that will be dismissive of its parent. But, it is now said, there was no unitary esoteric tradition and that view is only tenable on a selective reading of the evidence. The arguments surrounding this questioning of Yates include [[Lodovico Lazzarelli]] and the rival views of [[Antoine Faivre]], who has proposed a clearer definition of esotericism.{{sfn|Bogdan|2007|pp=9–10}}

Hanegraaff argued that the reception of Yates's work was coloured by the ''[[Zeitgeist]]''. An extra assumption, that the [[magus]] had a point of view that could be recovered, was fashionably added. Further he argues that [[essentialist]] rather than [[nominalist]] use of the very term "esotericism" has vitiated succeeding work. The "Yates paradigm", in his view, dominated in the 1970s but fell by the wayside in the 1980s for scholars.{{sfn|Hanegraaff|2004|pp=507–08}} Hints on the "Yates thesis" were left as sketches in works of Yates herself ([[Francis Bacon]] in relation to hermeticism, and the [[Hartlib circle]], in particular). These related to paths, and how actual influence on science was effected.

[[Brian Vickers (academic)|Brian Vickers]] identifies Rattansi, [[A. G. Debus]] and Peter J. French as on the side of the Yates thesis, with [[M. B. Hesse]], Edward Rosen, Paolo Rossi, and Charles Trinkaus on the other side. He notes that the debate (up to 1984) was not conducted by close reading of texts and evidence; he himself is entirely unconvinced by the thesis.{{sfn|Vickers|1984|pp=5–6}}

Yates's scholarship was often criticised for using what she termed her "powerful historical imagination"; she put forward scenarios that could not be proved using documentary evidence, something that many other historians saw as a flaw in her methodology.{{sfn|Jones|2008|p=68}}

But she "dealt with traditions whose remoteness she could not eliminate, even while she made them more understandable."{{sfn|Krois|2002}}