Treatise of Man (Monographs in History of Science) [Illustrated] [Hardcover]

René Descartes (Author), Thomas Steele Hall (Translator)

Book Description

Series: Monographs in History of Science | Publication Date: January 1, 1972

Besides his more famous works of philosophy - "Discourse on Method", "Meditations on First Philosophy", and "Principles of Philosophy" - Descartes devoted a great deal of time and thought to the study of physiology and anatomy. An account of his activities in 1629 reports that he visited butcher shops on an almost daily basis to study specific animal organs, and he practised dissection and even vivisection to explore the workings of major organ systems. In the 1630s, he assisted in the dissection of human cadavers - all to satisfy his intense curiosity about how bodies, animal and human, work. The fruits of this research can be found in his "Treatise of Man", a work that he decided not to publish for fear of suffering the same fate as Galileo. Consequently, this fascinating treatise did not appear until twelve years after his death. This is a landmark work that students of history, medicine, biology, and the history of science will find richly rewarding.

--This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Editorial Reviews

Language Notes

Text: English, French

About the Author

Rene Descartes was born into a family of some means in the small French town of La Haye on March 31, 1596. With the death of his mother when Descartes was barely one year old, he was raised by grandparents until the age of ten when he entered the Jesuit school at La Fleche. At eighteen, Descartes enrolled in the University of Poitiers, where he earned a degree in law. Not long thereafter, while Descartes was serving in the military in the Netherlands, he became acquainted with a mathematician and physicist by the name of Isaac Beeckman, who sparked his intellectual interest. A family legacy permitted Descartes to pursue these interests in relative comfort.

From 1619 to 1628, Descartes lived in Paris, but spent a good bit of time traveling throughout Europe. It was during this time that he focused his attention on formulating a rational method that could free scientific thinking and philosophical discourse from the rampant skepticism that threatened to drown discussion of important metaphysical and epistemological questions in a sea of uncertainty. Descartes developed a method that he believed could serve the needs of science and philosophy equally well. His efforts to realize this goal have earned him the title of the father of modern philosophy.

In 1628, his travels ended, Descartes settled in the Netherlands, where he remained for the next twenty years. The last few months of his life were spent in Sweden, where he ventured in 1649 at the request of Queen Christina to instruct her in philosophy and to assist in the development of an institute for the advancement of science. While in Stockholm, Descartes came to the aid of the French ambassador, a friend who was suffering from pneumonia. Not long thereafter, Descartes contracted the disease and died on February 11, 1650. --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 232 pages
• Publisher: Harvard University Press (January 1, 1972)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0674907108
• ISBN-13: 978-0674907102
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,196,749 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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3 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Descartes' "Treatise of Man", October 4, 2003

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mp - See all my reviews

This review is from: Treatise of Man (Great Minds Series) (Paperback)

René Descartes' 1629 "Treatise of Man" is a piece of natural philosophy worth noting and reading for a few reasons. Know that I have a long standing antipathy for Descartes for my own personal reasons. In the "Treatise," Descartes attempts to explain the workings of the human body by drawing an explicit comparison between a hypothetical "machine" which operates, ostensibly, "like we do". Descartes spends the best part of the "Treatise" outlining the ways that this machine's senses are informed by the singly material operations of the cardiovascular and nervous systems.

Working on what basically amounts to as a heat-model, Descartes discusses how blood in the heart, and what he calls animal spirits in the brain cause the human machine to function just "as we do" - without the supposed necessity of the soul. He does not dispense with the idea of the soul, however - after all that would get him excommunicated faster than he could have said "cogito ergo sum" - he merely dances around the issue by saying that the major difference between the human machine and "us" is that we have a soul located in its seat, the brain. His purpose, again, is to show how a soul is not necessary to the bodily functions of man - that our bodies all operate the same, and according to rational physical principles.

Descartes can be seen in the "Treatise" as a major contributor to late 17th and early 18th century notions of human passions. To this he contributes the omnipresent image of the filaments with which he says our nervous systems are comprised. Certainly we have all heard phrases like, "tugging on your heartstrings" - this popularly arises out of philosophies like Descartes, who proposes that our physical reactions - to pain, pleasure, etc. - are all the results of these filaments, or cords, within our bodies, which external stimuli act upon, sending messages to our brains. This affects not only reaction, but perception, and even the manifestations of our emotional responses to the external world.

Sight and Touch are Descartes' major focuses in the realm of human sensory perception. Noteworthy in the "Treatise" are Descartes' many example illustrations, scattered generously throughout the text and abundantly provided in this Prometheus Press edition of the "Treatise". From the mundane illustration showing how a person becomes aware of the pain of a fire, to the more unusual visual perception illustrations of a person in profile with one eyeball on top of the other, to the most interesting illustrations of the central "Gland H" in the brain, which becomes erect and points around in response to stimuli - Descartes' illustrations are, for me, the most fascinating part of the "Treatise."

One problem I have with Descartes' "Treatise," is the absolutely arbitrary way he delineates human perception. In Descartes' machine-logic, our perceptions follow and focus on whatever most immediately presents itself to the mind. In this schema - one could be talking to a friend, and completely forget about the friend if a butterfly crosses our line of vision - the ability to focus on one thing for a sustained period of time is something Descartes does not discuss. It leaves the reader, or at least this one, wondering if sustained focus is the province of the soul, which he does not discuss in this work, or if not - how he managed to write so much with the perpetual threat of distraction.