Illness and health in the philosophy of René Descartes

Abstract

The philosophy of René Descartes (1596–1650) plays an important part in the development of a “medical view”, whose archaeology was introduced in modern times by Michel Foucault (1926–1984) in his famous book The Birth of the Clinic (1963). However, the general medical conception of the philosopher hadn’t raised any interest on behalf of historians of ideas until recently. It is only in the beginning of the new millennium that medicals excerpts of Descartes’ writing were translated from Latin into modern French et became available to public, which proves the relevance of turning to historical analysis of Descartes’ medical conception. The main goal of this work is to present the historical background of the development of philosopher’s views on illness and health, parallel to the evolution of his conception of medicine. Along with the methods of philosophical history the article turns to the methodology of « history of ideas » that implies rapt attention to the cultural context of that era. We establish that it is important to distinguish two orders of signs in Descartes’ medical conception that come together in the clinical picture of philosopher’s death: on the one hand, there is the relatively precise history of illnesses and death of the philosopher, who, all his life, opposed a healthy lifestyle to illness; on the other hand, there are three stages of evolution of his medical conception, comprised of an initially mechanistic vision of the human body as a natural machine, then a psychosomatic vision of interpenetration of body and soul and, finally, philosopher’s understanding that he needs to be his own doctor. We conclude the following: Descartes’ death didn’t cross out the lines of medical signs in philosopher’s thinking and being, but it questioned them, pushing researchers to examine more closely the part that illness paid in the health cult that the philosopher followed during his life as well as the part that was dictated by the health cult in his final illness and death.