Peter M. Distelzweig

Dissertation:

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The Honorable Robert Boyle singled out René Descartes as a paradigmatic champion of a new, promising—even ‘excellent’—philosophy destined to scatter the obscurities of scholastic Aristotelianism. This new mechanical philosophy, said Boyle, posited one, uniform, catholic matter and explained natural phenomena only in those terms typically used to explain the workings of machines. However, this proponent of big-tent mechanism was disturbed by Descartes’ rejection of final causes in natural philosophy. Descartes, unlike atheistic Epicureans, believed in a wise and beneficent divine creator but thought his purposes inscrutable and so irrelevant to physics. In his Disquisition about Final Causes, Boyle argued for a legitimate but limited place for final causes in a Christian natural philosophy and insisted (with some recent scholars) that at points Descartes himself appealed to such ends. Gassendi, too, questioned Descartes’ rejection of final causes and doubted the explanatory sufficiency of material and efficient causes—particularly in the case of living things. For Gassendi, Boyle and many other near contemporaries, Descartes had firmly and problematically connected mechanism and ‘anti-teleology.’ Similarly, for most recent Descartes scholars the problem of relating mechanics and teleology in natural philosophy was set by Descartes.

In my dissertation I reject this assumption, examining the wider medical context of Descartes’ view of the relation between mechanical and teleological reasoning. In this wider context, I show, we find a very different, Galeno-Aristotelian approach to integrating mechanics and teleology undertaken by anatomists Hieronymus Fabricius ab Aquapendente and his more famous student, William Harvey (the discoverer of the circulation of the blood). My dissertation provides an interpretation of teleology and mechanism in Descartes by exploring the historical and conceptual relationship between his approach and that exhibited by these anatomists.

In Part I of the dissertation, I show that Fabricius and Harvey develop creative, teleological, and non-reductive approaches to mechanizing the animal precisely by developing Arisotelian and Galenic resources. In particular, they propose that mathematical mechanics, understood as an Aristotelian subordinate science, should be employed to articulate the way the function of the locomotive organs explains (as final cause) certain features of their anatomy, rendering those features hypothetically necessary. They articulate such final causal explanations using Galeno-Aristotelian concepts of actio and usus. The novelty and creativity of their approach is highlighted by looking briefly at the relation between teleological and material explanation in the 16th century medical thought of anatomist Andreas Vesalius and physician Jean Fernel.

Employing the resources developed in Part I, I provide a new interpretation of the relation of mechanism and teleology in Descartes and of its significance in Part II of the dissertation. By drawing attention to Fabricius’ and Harvey’s Galeno-Aristotelian integration of mechanics and teleology, I undermine the sense of inevitability attaching to the anti-teleological and reductionist approach associated with Descartes. I then turn to the problem of the apparent presence of (illicit?) teleology in Descartes’ physiology. Though he explicitly rejects final causes in natural philosophy, Descartes still appeals in physiology to apparently teleological concepts like ‘function’ and ‘use’. By focusing on the medical context of these concepts and contrasting his approach to Fabricius' and Harvey’s, I show that Descartes intends to and primarily does employ these terms in mechanical explanations meant to replace the metaphysically more extravagant but still material-efficient (not final causal) explanations present in the broadly Galenic medical tradition. I argue, further, that Descartes at times does in fact employ final causal explanations not unlike those characteristic of Fabricius’ and Harvey’s work, and that he would be hard-pressed, to ground some of these explanations, while still rejecting both divine purposes and non-mechanical principles in natural philosophy.

Publications:

1. Medicine and Early Modern Natural Philosophy, co-editor with Benjamin Goldberg and Evan Ragland (under contract with Springer; expected publication 2013). List of confirmed contributors.

   Tawrin Baker (Indiana University, Bloomington)
   Domenico Bertoloni Meli (Indiana University, Bloomington)
   Antonio Clericuzio (University of Cassino)
   Sorana Corneanu (University of Bucharest)
   Dennis Des Chene (Washington University)
   Karen Detlefsen (University of Pennsylvania)
   Peter Distelzweig (University of Pittsburgh)
   Patricia Easton (Claremont Graduate University)
   Karin Ekholm (Cambridge University)
   Benjamin Goldberg (East Tennessee State University)
   Hiro Hirai (Radboud University Nijmegen)
   Ashley Inglehart (Indiana University, Bloomington)
   Cynthia Klestinec (Miami University, Ohio)
   Gideon Manning (Caltech)
   Craig Martin (Oakland University)
   Evan Ragland (University of Alabama, Hunstville)
   Alan Salter (University of Sydney)
   Jole Shackelford (University of Minnesota)
   Justin E. H. Smith (Concordia University, Montreal)
   Charles Wolfe (Ghent University)
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2. “The Intersection of Mathematical and Natural Science: The Subordinate Sciences in Aristotle”, Apeiron (online; print forthcoming).

3. "Meam de motu & usu cordis, & ciruitu sanguinis sententiam: Teleology in William Harvey's De Motu Cordis", special issue of Gesnerus - Swiss Journal of the History of Medicine and Science, co-edited by Roberto Lo Presti and Nunzio Allocca (invited; forthcoming; submission draft).

4. “Fabricius’ Galeno-Aristotelian Teleomechanics of Muscle”, in The Life Sciences in Early Modern Philosophy, coedited by Justin E. H. Smith and Ohad Nachtomy, Oxford University Press (invited; in press; submission draft).

5. “How an Aristotelian Mechanizes the Animal: William Harvey’s De artificio mechanico musculorum” (to appear in 1).

6. “The Use of Usus and the Function of Functio: Teleology and its Limits in Descartes’ Physiology,” (conditionally accepted, Journal of the History of Philosophy).

7. Review of Styles of Reasoning:  A New History of Science from Ancient Times to the Present (by Chunglin Kwa, transl. David McKay, Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press 2011), HOPOS: The Journal of the International Society for the History of Philosophy of Science (invited; in preparation).

Other Ongoing Projects:

• Hobbes on phantasia and universality in language.  I'm interested in understanding how Hobbes' nominalism relates to his understanding of human cognitive faculties, particularly his reduction of all thought to sensory modalities--and how this differs from late scholastic nominalisms. Draft of preliminary work.

• Violent or Natural? The ontology of animal parts and their interactions in Aristotle. Here I'm working on understanding in what sense, for Aristotle, the motions that parts bring about in other parts are natural or violent.  Important here is the roles of matter, form and nature in the ontology of parts.

• Hobbes and Descartes on ideas, language, and existence.  Here I'm working on unpacking the differences between Descartes and Hobbes on the relationship between language and human cogntive faculties that help explain some of the terse exchanges and talking past each other found in the Third Objections and Replies.

• “I speak with the Poet” (and insult my opponents): Harvey’s use of Terence in De motu cordis, Chapter Seven.  This is just a little fun with Harvey's rhetoric in the De motu cordis.

• Teleology and the Physiology of Sensation and Locomotion in Aristotle, Fabricius and Harvey (With Jim Lennox).  We are working on the place of teleology and interspecific variation in relating the physiology of sensation and locomotion in the research projects of Aristotle and these two later Aristotelian anatomists.  We have presented on this at a recent conference at the Humboldt in Berlin.

• Co-organizer, Medicine, Philosophy and the 'Scientific Revolution' initiative. 

Recent and Scheduled Presentations:

• “Descartes’ Use of Usus: Grounding Cartesian Teleological Explanation,” Joint meeting of the Philosophy of Scieance Association and History of Science Society, San Diego, November 16, 2012.

• “’Mechanics’ in Harvey’s Anatomy: its varieties and limits,” Early Modern Medicine and Natural Philosophy, Center for the Philosophy of Science, University of Pittsburgh, November 2-4, 2012.



• “Sensation and Locomotion in Aristotle, Fabricius and Harvey,” (with James Lennox), From "Animal" to "Man": The medical and philosophical debate on human intelligence and animal perceptual faculties between Aristotelianism, Cartesianism and Post-Cartesianism (16th-18th centuries), Berlin, Humboldt-University), September 27-28, 2012.

• “William Harvey’s Galeno-Aristotelian Experimentalism”, Renaissance Anatomy Workshop, Indiana University, Bloomington (sponsored by HPS and Renaissance Studies), July 26, 2012.

• "Philosophical Anatomy: Teleology in Harvey's De motu cordis," 3-Society Meeting (History of Science Society, British Society for the History of Science, Canadian Society for the History and Philosophy of Science), Philadelphia, 11-14 July 2012.

• "Function, Use and Teleology in Descartes and Early Modern Medicine," International Society for the History of Philosophy of Science (HOPOS) 2012, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada, June 21-24, 2012.

• "William Harvey’s Aristotelian Experimentalism," International Society for the History of Philosophy of Science (HOPOS) 2012, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada, June 21-24, 2012.

• “Fabricius' Aristotelian Mechanization of Animal Progression,” History of Science Society 2011, Cleveland, November 5, 2011.

• “Temeritas: Descartes, the inscrutability of God, and the limits of teleology”. Invited Paper for “Restraints and Constraints: What counted as good philosophy in the Early Modern Period”, Symposium at the 4th Annual Appalachian Student Philosophy Colloquium (East Tennessee State University), March 2011.

• “Seventeenth Century Teleo-Mechanics in Anatomy: Muscle, Mathematics and Animal Locomotion”, International Society for the History of Philosophy of Science (HOPOS) 2010, Budapest, June 2010

• “Seventeenth Century Teleo-Mechanics: Muscle, Mathematics and Animal Locomotion”, Mid-Atlantic Seminar in Early Modern Philosophy, The Johns Hopkins University, April 2010

• “Teleological and Mechanical Reasoning in William Harvey's De motu locali animalium", Second Conference on Integrated History and Philosophy of Science (&HPS2), University of Notre Dame, March 2009

• "De Artificio Mechanico Musculorum: The Mechanical Problems in William Harvey’s De Motu Locali Animalium”, Joint meeting of the Philosophy of Scieance Association and History of Science Society (Pittsburgh), November 2008

• “Mathematics and the Heavens: Aristotle on Subordinate Science and Demonstrative Knowledge of the Heavens”, International Society for the History of Philosophy of Science (HOPOS) 2008, Vancouver, June 2008

• “Language, Memory and Universality in Hobbes's Philosophy of Language", Meaning and Modern Empiricism Conference (Virginia Tech), April 2008

• “Descartes and the Mixed Sciences”, Graduate Research Fair (Eastern Michigan University), March 2006

• “Communicating the Nature of Science in Intro Astronomy”, Graduate Research Fair (Eastern Michigan University), March 2005

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