IsisCB Explore

Article ID: CBB543679230

Bodies of Inference: Christian Wolff’s Epistemology of the Life Sciences and Medicine (2015)

Matteo Favaretti Camposampiero (Author)

Perspectives on Science
Volume: 24
Issue: 3
Pages: 361-379

DOI: 10.1162/POSC_a_00211

URI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1162/POSC_a_00211

Outside Links

WorldCat

Google Scholar

JSTOR

Academia.edu

Medicine Astronomy Experience; witness Pathology Epistemology 17th century 18th century Early modern Pitcairne, Archibald Wolff, Christian von

This paper explores Christian Wolff’s attempt to introduce his scientific method in the life sciences and medicine. As one can expect in the light of recent scholarship, Wolff firmly relies on experience and shares Pitcairne’s conviction that physicians should imitate astronomers in basing their claims on observations. However, Wolff’s rational foundation of medicine also highlights the heuristic value of hypotheses, the use of a priori explanations in pathology, the teleological character and metaphysical import of physiological and medical concepts. Thus, his epistemological attitude towards living beings represents an interesting alternative to the purely empirical trend in early modern medicine.

...More

Citation URI

https://data.isiscb.org/isis/citation/CBB543679230/

Citations Indexes

Similar Citations

Chapter Renato G. Mazzolini; (2006)
Albinos, Leucoæthiopes, Dondos, Kakerlakken: sulla storia dell'albinismo dal 1609 al 1812 (/isis/citation/CBB983266230/)

Article Raffaele Gaeta; Valentina Giuffra; (2019)
Necropsy Reports and Anatomo-Pathological Observations from the Archives of the Grand Ducal Medici Family of Florence. Part II – The 17th and First Half of the 18th Century (/isis/citation/CBB293423316/)

Article Paola Rumore; (2016)
Mechanism and Materialism in Early Modern German Philosophy (/isis/citation/CBB613435200/)

Article Alberto Vanzo; (2015)
Introduction to Special Issue on Experience in Natural Philosophy and Medicine (/isis/citation/CBB898034340/)

Chapter Simone Guidi; (2018)
“Non minus vero homo aegrotus creatura Dei est qua sanus”. Pathological and the Monstrous in Descartes’ "Sixth Meditation" (/isis/citation/CBB083972753/)

Article Denise Vincenti; (2019)
Experience and Experimentation: Medicine, Psychiatry and Experimental Psychology in Paul Janet (/isis/citation/CBB690744593/)

Book Maifreda, Germano; (2012)
From Oikonomia to Political Economy: Constructing Economic Knowledge from the Renaissance to the Scientific Revolution (/isis/citation/CBB001201675/)

Article Schaffer, Simon; (1989)
The Glorious Revolution and medicine in Britain and the Netherlands (/isis/citation/CBB000044465/)

Article Tianna Helena Uchacz; (2020)
Reconstructing Early Modern Artisanal Epistemologies and an “Undisciplined” Mode of Inquiry (/isis/citation/CBB002548867/)

Chapter Stefano Spataro; (2018)
Il corpo umano come luogo ‘ordinario’ dei vermi intestinali: storia e fortuna delle teorie parassitologiche di Antonio Vallisneri (/isis/citation/CBB076447100/)

Book Pietro Daniel Omodeo; Volkhard Wels; (2019)
Natural Knowledge and Aristotelianism at Early Modern Protestant Universities (/isis/citation/CBB325233371/)

Book Fabio Zampieri; (2021)
Giovanni Battista Morgagni: La nascita della medicina moderna (/isis/citation/CBB372846544/)

Article Jana Černá; (2019)
Beyond the “Irrational and Superstitious”: The New World, Spanish “Hunters of Nature’s Secrets”, and Transformations of Science in the Early Modern Era (/isis/citation/CBB342986705/)

Article Philippa Hellawell; (2019)
“The Best and Most Practical Philosophers”: Seamen and the Authority of Experience in Early Modern Science (/isis/citation/CBB806762885/)

Book Stuckrad, Kocku von; (2010)
Locations of Knowledge in Medieval and Early Modern Europe: Esoteric Discourse and Western Identities (/isis/citation/CBB001201627/)

Article Vincenzo Tavernese; (2012)
La "pestis" nei Medicinalium Libri VII di Tommaso Campanella tra medicina, magia e metafisica (/isis/citation/CBB748681805/)

Article Stigler, Stephen M.; (1992)
Apollo Mathematicus: A story of resistance to quantification in the 17th century (/isis/citation/CBB000029476/)

Thesis Casteel, Eric Grier; (2007)
Entrepot and Backwater: A Cultural History of the Transfer of Medical Knowledge from Leiden to Edinburgh, 1690--1740 (/isis/citation/CBB001561400/)

Article Lake, Crystal B.; (2013)
Feeling Things: The Novel Objectives of Sentimental Objects (/isis/citation/CBB001201889/)

Chapter Langman, Pete; (2011)
The Audience Is Listening: Reading Writing about Learning by Doing (/isis/citation/CBB001024414/)

Comments

{{ comment.created_by.username }} on {{ comment.created_on | date:'medium' }}