TY - JOUR
T1 - Magnifying the first points of life
T2 - Harvey and Descartes on generation and scale
AU - Basse Eriksen, Christoffer
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© The Author(s) 2021.
PY - 2022/12
Y1 - 2022/12
N2 - In this essay, I study the contested role of magnification as an observational strategy in the generation theories of William Harvey and René Descartes. During the seventeenth century, the grounds under the discipline of anatomy were shifting as knowledge was increasingly based on autopsia and observation. Likewise, new theories of generation were established through observations of living beings in their smallest state. But the question formed: was it possible to extend vision all the way down to the first points of life? Arguing that the potential of magnification hinged on the metaphysics of living matter, I show that Harvey did not consider observational focus on the material composition of blood and embryos to be conducive to knowledge of living bodies. To Harvey, generation was caused by immaterial, and thus in principle invisible, forces that could not be magnified. Descartes, on the other hand, believed that access to the subvisible scale of natural bodies was crucial to knowledge about their nature. This access could be granted through rational introspection, but possibly also through powerful microscopes. The essay thus ends with a reflection on the importance of Cartesian corpuscularianism for the emergence of microscopical anatomy in seventeenth-century England.
AB - In this essay, I study the contested role of magnification as an observational strategy in the generation theories of William Harvey and René Descartes. During the seventeenth century, the grounds under the discipline of anatomy were shifting as knowledge was increasingly based on autopsia and observation. Likewise, new theories of generation were established through observations of living beings in their smallest state. But the question formed: was it possible to extend vision all the way down to the first points of life? Arguing that the potential of magnification hinged on the metaphysics of living matter, I show that Harvey did not consider observational focus on the material composition of blood and embryos to be conducive to knowledge of living bodies. To Harvey, generation was caused by immaterial, and thus in principle invisible, forces that could not be magnified. Descartes, on the other hand, believed that access to the subvisible scale of natural bodies was crucial to knowledge about their nature. This access could be granted through rational introspection, but possibly also through powerful microscopes. The essay thus ends with a reflection on the importance of Cartesian corpuscularianism for the emergence of microscopical anatomy in seventeenth-century England.
KW - anatomy
KW - blood
KW - Early modern medicine
KW - generation theory
KW - microscopes
KW - scientific observation
KW - visibility
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85112393485&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1177/00732753211033476
DO - 10.1177/00732753211033476
M3 - Journal article
C2 - 34387511
AN - SCOPUS:85112393485
SN - 0073-2753
VL - 60
SP - 524
EP - 545
JO - History of Science
JF - History of Science
IS - 4
ER -