Medical Empiricism and Philosophy of Human Nature in the 17th and 18th Century

Claire Crignon, Dr. phil (2002, Ecole Normale Supérieure Lyon) is teaching Modern English philosophy at Paris Sorbonne University and working in the field of history of philosophy and medicine and contemporary philosophy of medicine. Publications: with Marie Gaille : A qui appartient le corps humain? Belles Lettres 2004; Mélancolie et enthousiasme Burton et Shaftesbury, 2006; Je ne veux pas vieillir! Gallimard jeunesse, 2010.Carsten Zelle, Dr. phil. (1985), Habilitation (1994), Ruhr-Universität Bochum, is professor for German Studies, esp. literary theory and rhetorics. He has published monographs on agreeable horror (1987) and the dual esthetics of modernity (1995), articles about German literary history in the 18th, 19th and 20th century and edited resp. co-edited several books e.g. case history (2012) and the representation of illness (2013). He is managing editor of the journal Das achtzehnte Jahrhundert.Nunzio Allocca is teaching History of Scientific Thought at Sapienza - Università di Roma. His research interests have focused on the history and philosophy of biology and medicine in the modern age. Last main publications: Cartesio e il corpo della mente, Roma 2012; Lo spazio, l'occhio e la mente. Cartesio e la visibilità del mondo, Roma 2012.

• IntroductionClaire Crignon, Carsten Zelle, Nunzio AlloccaI. THE DISPUTE BETWEEN METAPHYSICS AND EMPIRICISMThe Debate about methodus medendi during the Second Half of the Seventeenth Century in England: Modern Philosophical Readings of Classical Medical Empiricism in Bacon, Nedham, Willis and Boyle Claire CrignonThe Status of Leibniz’ Medical Experiments: A Provisional Empiricism? Anne-Lise ReyWhytt and the Idea of Power: Physiological Evidence as a Challenge to the Eighteenth-Century Criticism of the Notion of PowerClaire EtchegarayII. ARTS OF EMPIRICAL RESEARCHLearning to Read Nature: Francis Bacon’s Notion of Experiential Literacy (Experientia Literata)Guido GiglioniOf Snails and Horsetails: Anatomical Empiricism in the Early Modern PeriodDomenico Bertoloni MeliIII. RELEVANCE OF CASE STUDIESExperiment, Observation, Self-observation. Empiricism and the ‘Reasonable Physicians’ of the Early EnlightenmentCarsten ZelleWriting Cases and Casuistic Reasoning in Karl Philipp Moritz’ Journal of Empirical PsychologyYvonne WubbenIndices