Descartes' physiological method: position, principles, examples.

Abstract

*Part of a wider study of Descartes' biomedical works supported by Washington University and by National Science Foundation Grants GS-967 and GS-1985. The author appreciates the help received from Robert Penella, Harvard University, a research assistant whose appointment was made possible under the indicated grants. jAbbreviations used in the notes: AT Charles Adam and Paul Tannery, Oeuvres de Descartes (Paris: Cerf, 1897-1910 [republ., 1956-7, and 1964-7]), cited by volume and page. K C. G. Kuhn, Medicorum graecorum quae exstant (Leipzig: Knobloch, 1821-1833), cited by volume and page. 1. Written in French in 1632. First published posthumously in a Latin transl. by F. Schuyl, De Homine Figuris et Latinitate Donatus (Leyden: apud P. Leffen & F. Moyardum, 1662). Original publ. later, L'Homme de Rene Descartes [et un Traitte de la formation du foetus du mesme auteur, see below, note 2] avec les Remarques de Louys de la Forge, . . . (Paris: Angot, 1664), AT 11:119-202. Note on the terms biology, biological, biologist. Objections are sometimes raised to the anachronistic application of these terms to events or persons that antedated the introduction of the terms themselves. But this objection seems narrow. From Greek times, science has investigated the conditions and varied manifestations of life in general, and from this point of view it seems permissible to think of Aristotle-and Descartes-as biologists, and of their endeavors as biological.