Mechanisms of Life in the Seventeenth Century: Borelli, Perrault, Régis (2005)
Des Chene, Denis (Author)
Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part C: Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences
Volume: 36
Pages: 245--260
Edition Details: Part of a special issue: “Mechanisms in Biology”
Language: English
In Descartes's reformulation of natural philosophy, two aspects of what came to be known as the mechanical philosophy were intimately joined: mechanism as an ontology of nature, according to which all natural things had only `mechanical' properties; and mechanism as a method of explanation. One could, and many philosophers did, adopt mechanism as a method of explanation without adopting a mechanistic ontology. I examine two successors of Descartes who did just that, and one who did not. Giovanni Alfonso Borelli in his De motu animalium (1680) and Charles Perrault in his Mécanique de animaux (1680--1688, Vol. 3) propose and argue for a variety of mechanical accounts of the operations of animals, in particular of their muscles. They reject, however, the Cartesian reduction of animal souls to mechanical forces; the principle of animal motion for them remains a non-mechanical soul. Pierre Sylvain Régis in his Cours entier de philosophie (1690, 1691) follows Descartes in taking the `physical cause' of motion in animals to be the fermentation of blood in the heart, and thus denies animal souls any role in his physiology. That he can do so while taking over, sometimes word for word, Perrault's accounts of animal motion shows that mechanistic explanation and mechanistic ontology could easily part company.
...MoreArticle Craver, Carl F.; Darden, Lindley (2005) Introduction. Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part C: Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences (p. 233).
Similar Citations
Article
Ott, Walter;
(2008)
Régis's Scholastic Mechanism
(/isis/citation/CBB000930744/)
Chapter
Chene, Dennis des;
(2007)
Abstracting from the Soul: The Mechanics of Locomotion
(/isis/citation/CBB000774725/)
Chapter
Smith, Justin E. H.;
(2009)
Descartes and Henry More on Living Bodies
(/isis/citation/CBB001021836/)
Article
Des Chene, Dennis;
(2003)
Life after Descartes: Régis on Generation
(/isis/citation/CBB000502688/)
Chapter
Montacutelli, Stefania;
(2009)
Air “Particulae” and Mechanical Motions: From the Experiments of the Cimento Academy to Borelli's Hypotheses on the Nature of Air
(/isis/citation/CBB001020794/)
Book
Emanuele Zinato;
(2004)
Il vero in maschera: dialogismi galileiani. Idee e forme nelle prose scientifiche del Seicento
(/isis/citation/CBB596206141/)
Article
Schmaltz, Tad M.;
(2003)
Cartesian Causation: Body--Body Interaction, Motion, and Eternal Truths
(/isis/citation/CBB000340900/)
Chapter
Peterschmitt, Luc;
(2007)
The Cartesians and Chemistry: Cordemoy, Rohault, Régis
(/isis/citation/CBB000773494/)
Book
Schmaltz, Tad M.;
(2002)
Radical Cartesianism: The French Reception of Descartes
(/isis/citation/CBB000302043/)
Book
Giovanni Alfonso Borelli;
Luigi Ingaliso;
(2021)
De motu animalium
(/isis/citation/CBB899747827/)
Book
Jessica Riskin;
(2016)
The Restless Clock: A History of the Centuries-Long Argument Over What Makes Living Things Tick
(/isis/citation/CBB978602426/)
Book
Jessica Riskin;
(2015)
A History of the Centuries-Long Argument over What Makes Living Things Tick
(/isis/citation/CBB045220187/)
Article
Henry, John;
(2004)
Metaphysics and the Origins of Modern Science: Descartes and the Importance of Laws of Nature
(/isis/citation/CBB000502105/)
Book
Nolan, Lawrence;
(2011)
Primary and Secondary Qualities: The Historical and Ongoing Debate
(/isis/citation/CBB001035171/)
Book
Robertson, Neil G.;
McOuat, Gordon;
Vinci, Thomas C.;
(2007)
Descartes and the Modern
(/isis/citation/CBB001035169/)
Article
Hatfield, Gary;
(2007)
The Passions of the Soul and Descartes's Machine Psychology
(/isis/citation/CBB000771899/)
Book
Hattab, Helen;
(2009)
Descartes on Forms and Mechanisms
(/isis/citation/CBB000952122/)
Article
Carraud, Vincent;
(2005)
Approfondir trop et parler de tout: Les Principia philosophiae dans les Pensées (note complémentaire sur “Disproportion de l'homme”)
(/isis/citation/CBB000670887/)
Article
Janiak, Andrew;
(2010)
Substance and Action in Descartes and Newton
(/isis/citation/CBB001221446/)
Chapter
Wheeler, Michael;
(2008)
God's Machines: Descartes on the Mechanization of Mind
(/isis/citation/CBB000760388/)
Be the first to comment!