Descartes on Life and Sense

Canadian Journal of Philosophy 19 (2):163 - 192 (1989)
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Abstract

My aim … is to show that the celestial machine is likened not to a kind of divine living being but rather to a clockwork. I consider the human body to be a machine … Although it may exaggerate to say that Descartes fathered the mechanization of biology, it is true that his Treatise of Man provided the first systematic development of the idea that a complete understanding of all the phenomena of life, including all abilities and behaviour of animals, can be achieved by viewing living things as machines. To make this out, Decartes had to learn to think about living things in a new way. My first aim here is to identify the fundamental conceptual innovations at work in Descartes’ attempt to extend the new mechanics to include biology. My second aim is to locate the point at which Descartes’ mechanical imagination runs out. This requires study of Descartes’ scientific work on sense.

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The Cartesian doctor, François Bayle , on psychosomatic explanation.Patricia Easton - 2011 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part C: Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences 42 (2):203-209.

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