Divine Machines (ebook)

Argumento de Divine Machines (ebook)

"Even in the instances where the reader's doubts linger, Smith's scholarship makes a convincing case and one is required to look anew at Leibniz's most well known commitments. For the contributions it makes in our understandings of Leibniz and for the way in which Leibniz is integrated in the emergence of the life sciences, Divine Machines is highly recommended reading."--Lea F. Schweitz, Aestimatio

"Smith thus offers a broader historical context than the title suggests. But with Divine Machines, Leibniz himself emerges as a fascinating example of the early modern obsession with the grand questions about life, and is for this reason certainly of interest to historians of science and medicine."--Stephanie Eichberg, British Journal for the History of Science

"With this book, Justin Smith turns the world of Leibniz scholarship upside down. Others have argued for the centrality of Leibniz's views on language and logic, or on physics and mathematics, or on theology, but Smith shows us how to read this key figure in the history of modern thought through his biology. This learned, original, and exciting book is obligatory reading for anyone interested in the origins of modern philosophy."--Daniel Garber, Princeton University

"I can not overstate how important Divine Machines is to Leibniz studies and the history of early modern philosophy and science. There is so much material here, so many sources, so many arguments, so many connections made, that even as I write this I am distracted by thoughts of the many avenues of research Smith has opened up to the rest of us. Divine Machines is a watershed moment."--Gideon Manning, California Institute of Technology

"Smith's book is the first comprehensive, full-length study in English dedicated to Leibniz's philosophy of biology. He provides a very broad and detailed historical context for a fuller understanding of Leibniz's place in the history of the life sciences. Smith has uncovered and drawn upon many of Leibniz's own texts which have been understudied or even unused by other scholars. The scholarship is exemplary."--Karen Detlefsen, University of Pennsylvania

"Smith's . . . book affords quite a number of innovative analyses and is due to become a landmark of Leibniz studies."--François Duchesneau, HOPOS: Journal of the International Society for the History of Philosophy of Science0Abbreviations ix
Preface xi
Introduction 1

Part One: First Things
Chapter One: "Que les philosophes medicinassent": Leibniz?s Encounter withMedicine and Its Experimental Context 25
Chapter Two: The "Hydraulico-Pneumatico-Pyrotechnical Machine of Quasi-Perpetual Motion": Leibniz on Animal Economy 59

Part Two: From Animal Economyto Subtle Anatomy
Chapter Three: Organic Bodies, Part I: Nature and Structure 97
Chapter Four: Organic Bodies, Part II: Context and Legacy 137

Part Three: The Origins of Organic Form
Chapter Five:The Divine Preformation of Organic Bodies 165
Chapter Six: Games of Nature, the Emergence of Organic Form, and theProblem of Spontaneity 197

Part Four: Species
Chapter Seven: The Nature and Boundaries of Biological Species 235
Appendixes
1.Directions Pertaining to the Institution of Medicine (1671) 275
2.The Animal Machine (1677) 288
3.The Human Body, Like That of Any Animal, Is a Sort of Machine (1680-86) 290
4.On Writing the New Elements of Medicine (1682-83) 297
5.On Botanical Method (1701) 303

Notes 311
Bibliography 357
Index 375