Approaches to Integrating Mechanics and Teleology in Hieronymus Fabricius ab

248 Pages·2013·3.6 MB·English

by  Peter Distelzweig

DESCARTES’S TELEOMECHANICS IN MEDICAL CONTEXT:
Approaches to Integrating Mechanics and Teleology in Hieronymus Fabricius ab
Aquapendente, William Harvey, and René Descartes

by
Peter M. Distelzweig
B.A., Philosophy, University of Notre Dame, 2000
M.S., Physics: Physics Education, Eastern Michigan University, 2006

M.A., History and Philosophy of Science, University of Pittsburgh, 2010

Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of
the Kenneth P. Dietrich School of Arts & Science in partial fulfillment
of the requirements for the degree of
Doctor of Philosophy

University of Pittsburgh
2013
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UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH
The Kenneth P. Dietrich School of Arts & Sciences

This dissertation was presented

by

Peter M. Distelzweig

It was defended on
August 30, 2013
and approved by
Domenico Bertoloni Meli, Professor of History and Philosophy of Science, Indiana University
Daniel Garber, Stuart Professor of Philosophy, Princeton University
Paolo Palmieri, Associate Professor of History and Philosophy of Science, University of Pittsburgh
Dissertation Co-Advisors:
James Lennox, Professor of History and Philosophy of Science, University of Pittsburgh
Peter Machamer, Professor of History and Philosophy of Science, University of Pittsburgh

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Copyright © by Peter M. Distelzweig
2013
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Descartes’s Teleomechanics in Medical Context:
Approaches to Integrating Mechanics and Teleology in Hieronymus Fabricius ab
Aquapendente, William Harvey, and René Descartes

Peter M. Distelzweig, Ph.D.

University of Pittsburgh, 2013

In this dissertation, I examine the relation between mechanism and teleology in
Descartes’s physiology, placing his views in a wider medical and anatomical context. I show that
in this context we find distinctively Galeno-Aristotelian approaches to integrating mechanics and
teleology in the work of anatomists Hieronymus Fabricius ab Aquapendente and his more
famous student, William Harvey. I provide an interpretation of teleology and mechanism in
Descartes by exploring the historical and conceptual relationships between his approach and
those exhibited by these anatomists.
First, I show that Fabricius and Harvey articulate creative, teleological, non-reductive
approaches to mechanizing the animal precisely by developing Aristotelian and Galenic
resources. They propose that mathematical mechanics, understood as an Aristotelian subordinate
science, should be employed to articulate the way the functions of the locomotive organs explain
(as final causes) certain features of their anatomy, rendering them hypothetically necessary. They
articulate these explanations using the Galenic concepts actio and usus.
Employing the resources developed in my analysis of Fabricius and Harvey, I then
provide a new interpretation of the relation of mechanism and teleology in Descartes and clarify
its significance. Although he explicitly rejects final causes in natural philosophy, Descartes still
appeals in physiology to apparently teleological concepts like functio and usus. By focusing on
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the medical context of these concepts, I show that Descartes intends to and primarily does
employ these concepts in mechanical explanations. Descartes’ explanations are meant to replace
the metaphysically more extravagant but still material-efficient (not final-causal) explanations
present in the medical tradition. I then argue that Descartes at times does in fact employ final-
causal explanations similar to those in Fabricius’s and Harvey’s work. However, Descartes is
hard-pressed to ground these explanations while still rejecting both divine purposes and non-
mechanical principles in natural philosophy.
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For CRD,
a rose to this thistle.
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
PREFACE ................................................................................................................................. XIV
1.0 INTRODUCTION................................................................................................................ 1
1.1 DESCARTES AND MEDICINE ................................................................................... 4
1.2 DESCARTES, HARVEY, AND FABRICIUS .............................................................. 6
2.0 MECHANICS AND THE QUAESTIONES MECHANICAE ........................................ 11
2.1 MATHEMATICS AND DEMONSTRATIVE SCIENCE IN ARISTOTLE .............. 15
2.2 THE MORE NATURAL OF THE MATHEMATICAL SCIENCES ......................... 20
2.3 SUBORDINATE SCIENCES AND THEIR PECULIARITIES ................................. 25
2.4 DE CAELO AND ASTRONOMY ............................................................................... 34
2.5 16TH CENTURY MECHANICS AS A SUBORDINATE SCIENCE ......................... 39
2.6 CONCLUSION ............................................................................................................ 47
3.0 FABRICIUS’S GALENO-ARISTOTELIAN TELEOMECHANICS OF MUSCLE . 48
3.1 FABRICIUS’S MECHANICS OF ANIMAL MOTION? ........................................... 51
3.2 FABRICIUS’S PHILOSOPHICAL AND EXACT ANATOMY ................................ 55
3.2.1 Studying Functional Organ Systems ............................................................... 56
3.2.2 Fabricius’s Galenic Actio and Utilitas ............................................................. 58
3.2.3 Historia, Teleology, and Aristotelian Comparative Anatomy ........................ 70
3.3 FABRICIUS’S TELEOMECHANICS OF MUSCLE ................................................. 84
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3.4 FABRICIUS, ARISTOTELIANISM, AND MECHANICS ........................................ 97
4.0 WILLIAM HARVEY AND HIS SKETCH FOR AN INTEGRATED
TELEOMECHANICS OF MUSCLE ............................................................................ 100
4.1 QUONIAM FINIS ANATOMIAE EST… : UNDERSTANDING HARVEY’S
ANATOMIA PHILOSOPHICA ................................................................................... 103
4.1.1 Defining and Dividing Anatomy ................................................................... 104
4.1.2 The Goal of Anatomia Philosophica ............................................................. 112
4.1.3 Harvey’s Comparative Method and the ‘Rule of Socrates’ ........................... 120
4.2 HARVEY’S ANATOMIA MUSCULI AND DE ARTIFICIO MECHANICA
MUSCULORUM ........................................................................................................ 130
4.2.1 The Title, Structure, and Aim of the Notes ................................................... 131
4.2.2 De artificio mechanico musculorum .............................................................. 139
4.2.3 The Unity, Topic, and Title (again) of the Anatomia Musculi ...................... 149
4.3 THE DE MOTU CORDIS AND ANATOMIA PHILOSOPHICA .............................. 151
4.3.1 Final Causes and the Goal of Anatomy in the De motu cordis ..................... 152
4.3.2 Experiment and Anatomical Method in the De motu cordis ......................... 158
4.4 CONCLUSION: MECHANICS, MECHANISM, AND HARVEY’S GALENO-
ARISTOTELIAN ANATOMICAL PROJECT ......................................................... 169
5.0 DESCARTES’S TELEOMECHANICS IN MEDICAL CONTEXT .......................... 181
5.1 DESCARTES’S TELEOMECHANICAL PHYSIOLOGY? ..................................... 187
5.2 TELEOLOGY, MECHANISM, AND EXPLANATION .......................................... 195
5.3 CONSEQUENCE-ETIOLOGICAL EXPLANATIONS IN DESCARTES’S
PHYSIOLOGY .......................................................................................................... 198
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5.4 GROUNDING CONSEQUENCE-ETIOLOGICAL EXPLANATIONS .................. 203
5.5 DESCARTES’S STRATEGY AND ITS LIMITS ..................................................... 211
5.6 DESCARTES’S TWO TELEOMECHANICS IN MEDICAL CONTEXT ............... 217
6.0 CONCLUSION ................................................................................................................ 220
BIBLIOGRAPHY ..................................................................................................................... 223
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LIST OF TABLES

Table 1. Usus, Functio, and Explanation .................................................................................... 198
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