Hi, I'm Peter Adamson, and you're listening to the History of Philosophy podcast,

brought to you with the support of the philosophy department at King's College London and the LMU in Munich, online at

History of Philosophy.net. Today's episode will be an interview on medicine and science in Cartesianism

with Gideon Manning, who is Associate Professor of History of Medicine and Humanities at the Cedars

Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles. Hello, Gideon. Hi, Peter. Long-time admirer of the podcast,

I'm glad to be here. Thank you very much. Nice to have you here in Yinnick. We're going to be talking about medicine and Cartesianism in general, but let's start with Descartes himself. In a quote that you'd like to mention when you're writing about medicine, Descartes, he says, The Preservation of health has always been the principal end of my studies,

which sounds very emphatic. So can you elaborate on that? Sure, I'd be glad to. And it's true.

I do like this site that, although in all honesty, I think it's slightly a bit of an overstatement,

I should say, especially when you start to try and look for that kind of content in Descartes.

But maybe it'll help to give a broader view of medicine and philosophy in the period

and then locate Descartes there and then say something more about his actual views about

medicine.

And when I think about medicine in the early modern period, I think the thing to emphasize

is that true knowledge starts to become useful knowledge in the early modern period, I think the thing to emphasize is that true knowledge starts

to become useful knowledge in the early modern period, at least in many quarters. It's not that

it's philosophy, that is, it's not that it's no longer about consolation or contemplation

or beatitude or preparation for death.

It remains all those things.

But one of the measures of true knowledge in the early modern period seems to become

usefulness, the rubber hitting the road in terms of public goods, and in many cases,

reclaiming our health when it's lost, preserving our health, and even

extending the length of our lives.

...