Berkeley on true motion.

Studies of the Early Modern debate concerning absolute and relative space and motion often ignore the significance of the concept of true motion in this debate. Even philosophers who denied the existence of absolute space maintained that true motions could be distinguished from merely apparent ones. In this paper, I examine Berkeley's endorsement of this distinction and the problems it raises. First, Berkeley's endorsement raises a problem of consistency with his other philosophical commitments, namely his idealism. Second, Berkeley's endorsement raises a problem of adequacy, namely whether Berkeley can provide an adequate account of what grounds the distinction between true and merely apparent motion. In this paper, I argue that sensitivity to Berkeley's distinction between what is true in the metaphysical, scientific, and vulgar domains can address both the consistency and the adequacy problems. I argue that Berkeley only accepts true motion in the scientific and vulgar domains, and not the metaphysical. There is thus no inconsistency between his endorsement of true motion in science and ordinary language, and his metaphysical idealism. Further, I suggest that sensitivity to these three domains shows that Berkeley possesses resources to give an adequate account of how true motions are discovered in natural science.

Physiology, Vitalism, and the Contest for Body and Soul in the Antebellum United States.

In the early nineteenth century, physiology became an increasingly popular and powerful science in the United States. Religious controversy over the nature of human vitality animated much of this interest. On one side of these debates stood Protestant apologists who wedded an immaterialist vitalism to their belief in an immaterial, immortal soul - and therefore to their dreams of a Christian republic. On the other side, religious skeptics argued for a materialist vitalism that excluded anything immaterial from human life, aspiring thereby to eliminate religious interference in the progress of science and society. Both sides hoped that by claiming physiology for their vision of human nature they might direct the future of religion in the US. Ultimately, they failed to realize these ambitions, but their contest posed a dilemma late nineteenth-century physiologists felt compelled to solve: how should they comprehend the relationship between life, body, and soul? Eager to undertake laboratory work and leave metaphysical questions behind, these researchers solved the problem by restricting their work to the body while leaving spiritual matters to preachers. In attempting to escape the vitalism and soul questions, late nineteenth-century Americans thus created a division of labor that shaped the history of medicine and religion for the following century.

subrogación en series: una narrativa sobre la metafísica del embarazo / Surrogacy in Series: A Narrative on the Metaphysics of Pregnancy

Se analizan dos series que, con diferencia de quince años, abordan el tema de la maternidad subrogada: Shameless y Little fires everywhere, con el foco en las cuestiones bioéticas y sociales involucradas en ellas. A partir de los relatos de apego entre la gestante y la persona nacida o por nacer, se pone a prueba el concepto de "metafísica del embarazo", tal como lo trabaja Suki Finn, ofreciendo un escenario novedoso para un tema complejo y controvertido

Two series are analyzed that, with a difference of fifteen years, address the issue of surrogate motherhood: Shameless and Little fires everywhere, with a focus on the bioethical and social issues involved in them. From the stories of attachment between the pregnant woman and the person born or unborn, the concept of "metaphysics of pregnancy" is examined, as Suki Finn works, offering a novel scenario for a complex and controversial issue

Magnifying the first points of life: Harvey and Descartes on generation and scale.

In this essay, I study the contested role of magnification as an observational strategy in the generation theories of William Harvey and René Descartes. During the seventeenth century, the grounds under the discipline of anatomy were shifting as knowledge was increasingly based on autopsia and observation. Likewise, new theories of generation were established through observations of living beings in their smallest state. But the question formed: was it possible to extend vision all the way down to the first points of life? Arguing that the potential of magnification hinged on the metaphysics of living matter, I show that Harvey did not consider observational focus on the material composition of blood and embryos to be conducive to knowledge of living bodies. To Harvey, generation was caused by immaterial, and thus in principle invisible, forces that could not be magnified. Descartes, on the other hand, believed that access to the subvisible scale of natural bodies was crucial to knowledge about their nature. This access could be granted through rational introspection, but possibly also through powerful microscopes. The essay thus ends with a reflection on the importance of Cartesian corpuscularianism for the emergence of microscopical anatomy in seventeenth-century England.

Isaac Newton's 'De gravitatione et aequipondio fluidorum': its purpose in historical context.

Few texts in the history of science and philosophy have achieved the level of interpretative indeterminacy as a short manuscript tract by Isaac Newton, known as 'De gravitatione'. On the basis of some new evidence, this article argues that it is an introductory fragment of some lectures on hydrostatics delivered in the of spring 1671. Taking seriously the possibility of a pedagogical purpose, it is then argued that the famous digression on space, far from articulating a sophisticated metaphysics that may have owed something to Henry More, was a simple piece of mixed-mathematical prolegomena designed to facilitate the subsequent geometrical argumentation. In this regard, Newton was doing the same as his mentor, Isaac Barrow, had done in his own mathematical lectures; both drew heavily on the explicitly anti-metaphysical approach of Pierre Gassendi. It is shown that More himself would have almost certainly opposed Newton's approach. The excesses of metaphysical readings of Newton's intentions are challenged; there is no warrant for reading the digression as directly relevant to the Principia.

Darwin's "horrid" doubt, in context.

Proponents of Alvin Plantinga's evolutionary argument against Naturalism (EAAN) often quote Charles Darwin's 22 April 1881 letter to William Graham to imply Darwin worried that his theory of evolution committed its adherents to some sort of global skepticism. This niggling epistemic worry has, therefore, been dubbed 'Darwin's Doubt'. But this gets Darwin wrong. After combing through Darwin's correspondence and autobiographical writings, the author maintains that Darwin only worried that evolution might cause us to doubt (a) particularly abstruse metaphysical and theological beliefs, and (b) beliefs arrived at by 'intuition' rather than evidence-based reasoning. He did not worry that unguided evolution should lead us to doubt all of our beliefs in the way Plantinga and others have implied that it does.

Fish and fishpond. An ecological reading of G.W. Leibniz's Monadology §§ 63-70.

One of Leibniz's most original ideas is his conception of the living individual as a hierarchical network of living beings whose relationships are essential to the proper functioning of its organic body. This idea is also valid to explain any existing order in nature that depends on the set of relationships of living beings that inhabit it. Both ideas are present in the conception of the natural world that Leibniz presents in his Monadology (§§ 63-70) through his idea of biological infinitism. According to this idea, nature consists of infinite theatres (some within others and some unfolding from others) where living beings unfold their vital functions. Through this idea Leibniz defines both the biological complexity of nature and the living individual, which is in turn a portion of nature that unfolds from an infinite set of inferior living beings. The thesis that I defend in this work is that this Leibnizian understanding of the living individual and the natural complexity that includes infinite hierarchical levels of individuality has a marked ecological sense, as we would say today. This Leibnizian metaphysics of individuality that we could call biological is also interesting in light of the recent studies in the philosophy of biology.

Kant, Linnaeus, and the economy of nature.

Ecology arguably has roots in eighteenth-century natural histories, such as Linnaeus's economy of nature, which pressed a case for holistic and final-causal explanations of organisms in terms of what we'd now call their environment. After sketching Kant's arguments for the indispensability of final-causal explanation merely in the case of individual organisms, and considering the Linnaean alternative, this paper examines Kant's critical response to Linnaean ideas. I argue that Kant does not explicitly reject Linnaeus's holism. But he maintains that the indispensability of final-causal explanation depends on robust modal connections between types of organism and their functional parts; relationships in Linnaeus's economy of nature, by contrast, are relatively contingent. Kant's framework avoids strong metaphysical assumptions, is responsive to empirical evidence, and can be fruitfully compared with some contemporary approaches to biological organization.

Shut your eyes and see. Emergencias y medialidades de la forma / Shut your eyes and see. Emergencies and medialities of the form

El medio puede ser definido como una condición de lo visible que vincula la percepción y el pensamiento, mintiéndose exento de todo intento de formalización. Al producir formas, el medio solo puede ser captado por las huellas, reconfiguraciones o desplazamientos que causa. En un retorno a la etimología de este término en Aristóteles y en su traductor latino, Tomás de Aquino, intentaremos ubicar el campo de tensión, entre el empirismo y la metafísica, que acompaña todo proyecto de teorización de él. En una lectura del comienzo del tercer capítulo de Ulises, estudiaremos la influencia de este debate en la literatura de James Joyce. Proponemos que Joyce inclina el problema filosófico hacia un principio poético ubicado en el corazón del lenguaje mismo. Así, Joyce crea nuevos cuerpos de lenguaje llevados por el ritmo que involucra el acto de interpretación en una experiencia sensorial necesaria a toda forma de comprensión

The medium can be defined as a condition of the visible which links perception and thought while remaining itself withdrawn from any attempt of formalization. Producing forms, the medium can only be grasped by the traces, reconfigurations or displacements it causes. By retracing the etymology of this term in Aristotle and his Latin translator Thomas Aquinas, we will try to situate the field of tension between empiricism and metaphysics which accompanies any attempt to theorize this concept. In a reading of the beginning of the third chapter of Ulysses, we will study the influence of this debate on James Joyce's literature. We propose that Joyce tilts the philosophical problem towards a poetic principle. Thus, Joyce creates new language-bodies carried by the rhythm which engages the act of interpretation in a sensual experience necessary for any understanding

Uncovering the metaphysics of psychological warfare: The social science behind the Psychological Strategy Board's operations planning, 1951-1953.

In April 1951 president Harry S. Truman established the Psychological Strategy Board to enhance and streamline America's sprawling psychological warfare campaign against the USSR. As soon as the Board's staff began work on improving US psychological operations, they wondered how social science might help them achieve their task. Board Director, Gordon Gray, asked physicist turned research administrator Henry Loomis to do a full review of America's social science research program in support of psychological operations. Loomis willingly accepted the task. This paper documents Loomis's investigation into America's social science research program. It uncovers the critical role that government departments had in the creation of research in the early 1950s and thus highlights that the government official is an important actor in the history of social science and the application of social science to psychological operations at the beginning of the Cold War.

Living natural products in Kant's physical geography.

In this paper I propose a new account of living natural products in Kant's physical geography. I argue that Kant adopts Buffon's twofold conception of natural history, which consists of a general theory of nature as a physical nexus of causes and a particular account of living natural products in the setting of the earth. Yet in contrast to Buffon, who placed the two parts of natural history on equal epistemic footing, Kant's physical geography can be understood as a second, pragmatic level of inquiry that stands under the formal conditions of nature outlined in Universal Natural History. On the higher, formal level, natural history provides a physical account of time and space as an expanding causal sequence. On the lower, pragmatic level, physical geography provides a causal account of particular natural products as developing within a specific place. I argue that this two-tiered account not only clarifies the relation between metaphysics and experience in Kant's pre-critical philosophy, it also sheds light on the continuity between the method of physical geography and the systematisation of nature presented in the critical philosophy.

Between biology and chemistry in the Enlightenment: how nutrition shapes vital organization. Buffon, Bonnet, C.F. Wolff.

This paper seeks to characterize how the study of nutrition processes contributed to revisit the problem of vital organization in the late eighteenth century. It argues that focusing on nutrition leads to reformulate the problem of the relation between life and organization in terms of processes, rather than static or given structures. This nutrition-centered approach to life amounts to acknowledge the specific strategic role nutrition played in the development of a materialist approach to the generation of vital organization. The paper proposes a clarification of the multiple meanings of the concept of organization in the context of Enlightenment physiology and nascent biology, before focusing on the century long analogy between nutrition and generation. It shows how, by contrasting different uses of this analogy, nutrition was employed as a key vital phenomenon in the development of epigenetic theories of generation, i.e. how a nutritive modeling of generation was used in the undermining of preformationism. To this purpose I contrast two seemingly opposite theories of generation, Buffon's and Bonnet's, and show that despite the obvious metaphysical discontent, their views of generation share a common mechanical conceptual frame in which nutrition is conflated with growth and repair. I then turn to the role nutrition played in the epigenetic conception of generation in C. F. Wolff's embryology and analyze this rival understanding of nutrition as an organizing process.

Presença de formas filosóficas medievais na fenomenologia nascente: o caso de Edith Stein / Presence of medieval philosophical forms in the nascent phenomenology: the case of Edith Stein / Presencia de formas filosóficas medievales en la fenomenología naciente: el caso de Edith Stein

Se para a fenomenologia de Husserl o papel do pensamento medieval não é essencial, inteiramente diferente é o caso da filosofia madura de Edith Stein, por ela intitulada filosofia do ser, em uma conjunção explícita de fenomenologia e metafísica. Iniciando, então, por um breve estudo da relação entre Husserl e formas medievais do pensamento, este artigo concentra-se no caso específico de Edith Stein e sua recepção de autores como Anselmo de Cantuária e Tomás de Aquino, entre outros, concluindo pela sua investigação sobre o que torna possível a afeccionabilidade ou a afectibilidade, quer dizer, a condição de possibilidade da síntese passiva.

If for Husserl's Phenomenology the role of medieval thought is not essential, it is entirely different from Edith Stein's mature philosophy, which she calls philosophy of being, in an explicit conjunction of Phenomenology and Metaphysics. So, starting by a brief study on the relationship between Husserl and medieval forms of thought, this article focuses on the specific case of Edith Stein and her reception of authors such as Anselm of Canterbury and Thomas Aquinas, among others, concluding by her investigation on what makes affectionability or affection possible, that is, the condition of possibility of passive synthesis.

Si para la fenomenología de Husserl el papel del pensamiento medieval no es esencial, completamente diferente es el caso de la filosofía madura de Edith Stein, por ella intitulada filosofía del ser, en una conjunción explícita de fenomenología y metafísica. Empezando, entonces, por un breve estudio de la relación entre Husserl y formas medievales de pensamiento, este artículo se centra en el caso específico de Edith Stein y su recepción de autores como Anselmo de Cantuaria y Tomás de Aquino, entre otros, concluyendo por su investigación sobre lo que hace posible la afeccionabilidad o la afectibilidad, es decir, la condición de posibilidad de la síntesis pasiva.

Fenomenologia e relatividade: Husserl, Weyl, Einstein e o conceito de essência / Phenomenology and Relativity: Husserl, Weyl, Einstein and the Concept of Essence / Fenomenología y Relatividad: Husserl, Weyl, Einstein y el Concepto de Esencia

O objetivo deste artigo é desenhar uma nova concepção de "essência", a partir da análise das obras de Husserl (por exemplo, Filosofia da Aritmética, Investigações Lógicas, Ideias) e comparando com as considerações de Einstein e Weyl (a maioria delas inéditas) sobre fundamentar um novo método que combina "análise filosófica da essência" e "construção matemática". A pesquisa sobre a natureza física do espaço-tempo nos fornece um exemplo de análise fenomenológica pura das essências. Ao desenvolver essa concepção de essência, a subjetividade e a consciência fenomenológicas desempenham um papel importante para representar uma representação relativamente objetiva da realidade das coisas. Por essa razão, o objetivo principal deste trabalho é buscar a complementaridade entre objetividade e subjetividade na consciência representacional e na produção de essências; Além disso, este estudo tem como objetivo demonstrar como a intersubjetividade fenomenológica atua na constituição das essências, para que possamos considerar a constituição das essências intersubjetivas como um caso possível de construção de um mundo real.

This paper aims to draw a new conception of "essence", starting from the analysis of Husserl's works (e.g. Philosophy of Arithmetic, Logical investigations, Ideas) and comparing with the Einstein and Weyl considerations (most of them unpublished) about grounding a new physical method which combines "philosophical analysis of essence" and "mathematical construction". The research about the physical nature of space-time provides us with an example of pure phenomenological analysis of essences. In developing this conception of essence, phenomenological subjectivity and consciousness play an important role in order to depict a relatively objective representation of thingly reality. For this reason, the principal purpose of this paper is seeking to address the complementarity between objectivity and subjectivity in the representational consciousness and in its production of essences; moreover, this study aims to demonstrate how phenomenological intersubjectivity acts on the constitution of essences, so that we might consider the intersubjective essences' constitution as one possible case of constructing a real world.

Este trabajo pretende dibujar una nueva concepción de "esencia", comenzando por el análisis de las obras de Husserl (por ejemplo, Filosofía de la aritmética, Investigaciones lógicas, Ideas) y comparando las consideraciones de Einstein y Weyl (la mayoría de ellas inéditas) sobre cómo establecer un nuevo físico método que combina "análisis filosófico de la esencia" y "construcción matemática". La investigación sobre la naturaleza física del espacio-tiempo nos proporciona un ejemplo de análisis fenomenológico puro de las esencias. Al desarrollar esta concepción de la esencia, la subjetividad fenomenológica y la conciencia juegan un papel importante para representar una representación relativamente objetiva de la realidad de las cosas. Por esta razón, el propósito principal de este artículo es tratar de abordar la complementariedad entre la objetividad y la subjetividad en la conciencia representacional y en su producción de esencias; además, este estudio pretende demostrar cómo la intersubjetividad fenomenológica actúa sobre la constitución de las esencias, de modo que podríamos considerar la constitución de las esencias intersubjetivas como un posible caso de construir un mundo real

Fenomenología trascendental y scientia trascendens: dos versiones de la intencionalidad / Fenomenologia transcendental e scientia trascendens: duas versões da intencionalidade / Transcendental phenomenlogy and scientia trascendens: two conceptions of the intentionality

Este trabajo confronta dos versiones de la intencionalidad, de Duns Escoto y de Edmund Husserl. Esta confrontación permite establecer en qué medida la filosofía de Duns Escoto, la scientia trascendens, enriquece la concepción fenomenológica de la intencionalidad, y permite determinar si la filosofía de Escoto contiene una 'fenomenología de la verdad'. En el desarrollo del trabajo se muestra que, a pesar de algunas convergencias importantes con respecto a la intencionalidad, Escoto y Husserl tienen dos concepciones muy distintas del fenómeno o de la presencia; para el primero el objeto intencional se ofrece mediante las especies inteligibles, para el segundo a través de la fenomenalización. La investigación muestra que el mayor punto de divergencia está en la concepción del ser: para Escoto ser y verdad van de la mano, con independencia de los actos intencionales. Para Husserl, el sentido del ser surge de la actividad intencional de la conciencia, trascendental, determinada por los horizontes de orden temporal, mundano, intersubjetivo. Finalmente, Escoto plantea preguntas de orden metafísico, que llevan a reflexionar sobre los límites de esta disciplina.

This essay compares intentionality in Duns Scotus and Edmund Husserl. Such comparison allows to consider up to which point Scotus's philosophy, the scientia transcendens, enriches the phenomenological concept of intentionality and allows to determine whether such philosophy contains a "phenomenology of truth". It is shown that, despite some important convergencies respect of intentionality, Scotus and Husserl have two very different conceptions of the phaenomenon or the presence; for the first one, the intentional object is offered through the intelligible species, whereas for the second this is done through phaenomenization. This research shows that the main point of divergence is the conception of being: for Scotus, being and truth go together, independantly from intentional acts. For Husserl, the meaning of being arises from the intentional activity of the transcendental conscience, determined by intersubjective, worldly, temporal horizons. Finally, Scotus states questions of metaphysical character, which lead to think about the limits of this discipline.

Este trabalho confronta duas versões de intencionalidade, de Duns Escoto e de Edmund Husserl. Esta confrontação permite estabelecer em que medida a filosofía de Duns Escoto, a scientia trascendens, enriquece a concepção fenomenológica de intencionalidade, e permite determinar se a filosofía de Escoto contém uma "fenomenología da verdade". No desenvolvimento do trabalho mostra-se que, apesar de algumas convergências importantes em relação à intencionalidade, Escoto e Husserl têm duas concepções muito diferentes do fenômeno ou da presença; para o primeiro, o objeto intencional é oferecido através de espécies inteligíveis; para o segundo, através da fenomenalização. Pesquisas mostram que o maior ponto de divergência está na concepção do ser: para Escoto, o ser e a verdade andam de mãos dadas, independentemente de atos intencionais. Para Husserl, a sensação de ser surge da atividade intencional da consciência, transcendental, determinada por horizontes de ordem temporal, mundana e intersubjetiva. Finalmente, Escoto coloca questões de ordem metafísica, que levam a refletir sobre os limites dessa disciplina.

A non-metaphysical evaluation of vitalism in the early twentieth century.

In biology the term "vitalism" is usually associated with Hans Driesch's doctrine of the entelechy: entelechies were nonmaterial, bio-specific agents responsible for governing a few peculiar biological phenomena. Since vitalism defined as such violates metaphysical materialism (or physicalism), the received view refutes the doctrine of the entelechy as a metaphysical heresy. But in the early twentieth century, a different, non-metaphysical evaluation of vitalism was endorsed by some biologists and philosophers, which finally led to a logical refutation of the doctrine of the entelechy. In this non-metaphysical evaluation, first, vitalism was not treated as a metaphysical heresy but a legitimate response to the inadequacy of mechanistic explanations in biology. Second, the refutation of vitalism was logically rather than metaphysically supported by contemporary biological knowledge. The entelechy was not a valid concept, because vitalists could neither formulate vital laws (to attribute determinate consequences to the entelechy), nor offer convincing examples of experimental indeterminism (to confirm the perpetual inadequacy of mechanistic explanations).

Hughlings Jackson and the "doctrine of concomitance": mind-brain theorising between metaphysics and the clinic.

John Hughlings Jackson (1835-1911) is a major figure at the origins of neurology and neuroscience in Britain. Alongside his contributions to clinical medicine, he left a large corpus of writing on localisation of function in the nervous system and other theoretical topics. In this paper I focus on Jackson's "doctrine of concomitance"-his parallelist theory of the mind-brain relationship. I argue that the doctrine can be given both an ontological and a causal interpretation, and that the causal aspect of the doctrine is especially significant for Jackson and his contemporaries. I interpret Jackson's engagement with the metaphysics of mind as an instance of what I call meta-science-the deployment by scientists of metaphysical positions and arguments which help streamline empirical investigations by bracketing off unanswerable questions and focussing attention on matters amenable to the current tools of experimental research.

Aristóteles y la medicina / Aristotle and the medicine

En su estado actual el Corpus Aristotelicum no contiene ningún tratado dedicado a la medicina, siendo esto causa suficiente como para que muchos estudiosos hayan dado por hecho que Aristóteles nunca la tomó como objeto de estudio. Otros, empero, pretenden justamente dar pruebas de que Aristóteles sí se interesó por el arte médico, que lo estudió y que es muy plausible que escribiera sobre medicina. Para ello traen a colación razones de diversa índole, aunque básicamente serán dos los argumentos en los que harán hincapié. El primero engloba las analogías médicas que Aristóteles utiliza en sus tratados, y el segundo recurre a las menciones a determinados libros de contenido médico a lo largo del Corpus Aristotelicum. A partir de un examen crítico de ambos argumentos este artículo pretende arrojar algo más de luz sobre el asunto a partir de los contenidos del papiro Anónimo de Londres (AU)

None of the treatises in the Corpus Aristotelicum is directly concerned to medicine, this leading the majority of scholars to contend that Aristotle did not paid attention to that discipline. But, in other way, there is who argues that Aristotle should have necessarily been acquainted with the principles of the medical art, so that it is very likely that Aristotle enquired on medicine. Almost two different reasons are adduced in this sense: the oft-repeated use of medical analogies in Aristotle’s opera, and the allusions to some medical writings by Aristotle himself. In giving a critical description and assessment of both arguments, this paper also aims at clarifying the issue by bringing up into discussion the contents in the Anonymus Londiniensis papyrus (AU)

De la ruptura o el vínculo entre razón y locura en Descartes, Foucault y Derrida / On rupture or the bond between reason and madness in Descartes, Foucault and Derrida

Este trabajo propone pensar la relación entre locura y razón, pero a su vez problematizar su supuestamente clara diferencia a partir de tres lecturas interconectadas. Como texto que nos servirá de punto de partida, discutiremos las Meditaciones Metafísicas de René Descartes. A continuación, revisaremos la crítica al mismo que se encuentra en el capítulo «El gran encierro» de la Historia de la locura en la época clásica de Michel Foucault, donde se presenta la consideración de que en la Modernidad, de la mano de Descartes, se habría llevado a cabo un «violento encierro filosófico de la locura». En tercer lugar, se recogerá la discusión de esta tesis por parte de Jacques Derrida en el segundo capítulo de La escritura y la diferencia, «Cogito e historia de la locura», cuya propuesta se opone a la teoría de que tal encierro haya tenido lugar y, en todo caso, de que se trate de un hecho histórico. Se atenderá también brevemente a la respuesta de Michel Foucault a su contemporáneo en el apéndice de la segunda edición de su Historia de la locura, «Mi cuerpo, ese papel, ese fuego». En suma, se presenciará el debate entre estos dos pensadores en torno al párrafo en el que Descartes, al menos, menciona la posibilidad de la locura (AU)

This article proposes thinking the relation between madness and reason, but at the same time problematizing its allegedly evident difference taking into account three interconnected works. As the starting point we will discuss Descartes’ Metaphysical Meditations. Afterwards, we will review the critique made to it in the chapter «the Great Confinement» of Michel Foucault’s Madness and Civilization: A History of Insanity in the Age of Reason, where it is argued that it was during the Modern Age, with Descartes, when a «violent philosophical confinement of madness» was carried out. Thirdly, we will assess Jacques Derrida’s discussion of this thesis in the second chapter of Writing and Difference, «Cogito and the History of Madness», whose proposal refuses the theory according to which such confinement would have occurred, and if anything, that it is not a historical fact. We will also take notice of Foucault’s counterargument to Derrida in the appendix to the second edition of his History of Madness, «My body, this paper, this fire». To sum up, we will meet the debate between these two authors around Descartes’ paragraph in which he, at least, mentions the possibility of madness (AU)

Epigenesis and the rationality of nature in William Harvey and Margaret Cavendish.

The generation of animals was a difficult phenomenon to explain in the seventeenth century, having long been a problem in natural philosophy, theology, and medicine. In this paper, I explore how generation, understood as epigenesis, was directly related to an idea of rational nature. I examine epigenesis-the idea that the embryo was constructed part-by-part, over time-in the work of two seemingly dissimilar English philosophers: William Harvey, an eclectic Aristotelian, and Margaret Cavendish, a radical materialist. I chart the ways that they understood and explained epigenesis, given their differences in philosophy and ontology. I argue for the importance of ideas of harmony and order in structuring their accounts of generation as a rational process. I link their experiences during the English Civil war to how they see nature as a possible source for the rationality and concord sorely missing in human affairs.