Physiology of the Soul

Description

The book offers a new reading of the debate on mind, body and matter with regards to the largely uncharted territory of Galenic medicine in the Late Renaissance period. In spite of the commonly held opinion according to which Galen's authority was gradually superseded by Vesalius and his followers, a close look at the influence that Galen's psychological works exerted on physicians and philosophers of the early modern period reveals quite a different picture. Not only were Galenists often keen to embrace the new anatomical discoveries, eventually they even contributed to shaping a series of new analytical, practical and experimental tools that started an in-depth transformation of the traditional rationale, with far-reaching and unexpected consequences in domains such as theory of matter, philosophical anthropology and medical experimentation. Through the lens provided by mental disease and its connection to the soul, a new concept of the body and the human animal ultimately emerges: a concept that accompanies the development of early modern ideas on subjectivity and the self.

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