La maîtrise et la conservation du corps vivant chez Descartes

Abstract

The texts in which Descartes tries to give a mechanical account on the living form one of the major contributions to the history of the natural sciences. But, as a part of Cartesian physics, Cartesian biology has been considered as a reducing and insufficient or even dangerous theory by many historiographical or philoso­ phical traditions which supported the empiricism of the Lumières against the Cartesian system. How poor is the image of the Cartesian biomechanics when it is reduced to a sketchy ethical and ontological building of the animality. By analysing the elements that make Cartesian thought of living a science, this article tries to show that it is on the ground of knowledge that the status of the living body can be understood for what it is : an open assumption. Moral interpretations of the animal machine doctrine, which pretend not to see this epistemological aim in Descartes, can be ­ prevailed of no historical or philosophical background to justify their biased reading.

Keywords

• biology
• living bodies
• mechanism
• Descartes
• alchemy
• animal