From From Mechanical Rhetoric as Physiological Principle to the Economic Exploitation of the Body. Harvey, Descartes and the Disciplinary Paradigm in Michel Foucault
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Universidad Industrial de Santander
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La historia de la modernidad, como relato de la victoria de la racionalidad humana sobre toda forma de barbarie o superstición, no podría comprenderse adecuadamente sin un fenómeno un tanto paradójico que, antes que definir los estatutos del alma o de la res cogitans, encuentra su fundamento en una problematización de lo corporal. En este artículo examinaremos algunas analogías mecanicistas del cuerpo desde el punto de vista médico-terapéutico, como un sistema compuesto por articulaciones, engranes, flujos, circuitos, mecanismos, etc., con su propia lógica interna e independiente de las leyes del universo. Se esboza una discusión clave para la historia tanto de la fisiología como de la filosofía mecanicista que tiene como exponentes a William Harvey y a René Descartes, para examinar más a fondo algunos presupuestos metafísicos del francés que darán lugar al nacimiento del modelo político de las disciplinas, tal como es analizado por Michel Foucault.
The history of Modernity as thought as the victorious narrative of the human reason over any form of barbarism and superstition, cannot be properly framed regardless a certainly paradoxal assumption —that the definition of the soul its primarily founded on a problematization of the body. In this paper we examine some medical metaphors of the body from the perspective of the mechanical paradigm, such as a system of joints, gears, fluxes, circuits and so on, with its own inner logic moreover than according with the laws of the universe. The article sketches out an argument between William Harvey and Rene Descartes as seen as a key chapter for the history of the medicine as well as that of the mechanical philosophy. Likewise we follow-up some of Descartes' metaphysical assumptions which according to our reading will give birth to the disciplinary model in modern societies, as such as they’re analysed by Michel Foucault.
The history of Modernity as thought as the victorious narrative of the human reason over any form of barbarism and superstition, cannot be properly framed regardless a certainly paradoxal assumption —that the definition of the soul its primarily founded on a problematization of the body. In this paper we examine some medical metaphors of the body from the perspective of the mechanical paradigm, such as a system of joints, gears, fluxes, circuits and so on, with its own inner logic moreover than according with the laws of the universe. The article sketches out an argument between William Harvey and Rene Descartes as seen as a key chapter for the history of the medicine as well as that of the mechanical philosophy. Likewise we follow-up some of Descartes' metaphysical assumptions which according to our reading will give birth to the disciplinary model in modern societies, as such as they’re analysed by Michel Foucault.
Keywords
cuerpo, descripción anatómica, intervención médica, Harvey, Descartes, res extensa, sociedades disciplinarias, biopolítica, Foucault, Body, Anatomical description, Medical intervention, Harvey, Descartes, Res extensa, Disciplinary societies, Biopolitics, Foucault