Abstract

LOPEZ-MUNOZ, Francisco  and  PEREZ-FERNANDEZ, Francisco. The neurophysiological legacy of Cartesianism: boom and falling of the Machine-Man. Rev. Asoc. Esp. Neuropsiq. [online]. 2022, vol.42, n.141, pp.31-53.  Epub July 18, 2022. ISSN 2340-2733.  https://dx.doi.org/10.4321/s0211-57352022000100003.

René Descartes embodies the contradictory spirit of Modernity because was trapped between the idealistic philosophy and the materialist science, or between the body and the soul, but at the same time because he considered that there was no contradiction in that point of view. His work tried to connect what he considered valuable from the old proposals and the new advances. The result is an extravagant psycho-anthropological and neuroanatomic approach in which all options and positions are possible because, in one way or another, all were protected and reflected: from the idea of the Machine-Man to the animistic psychologism. In fact, a good part of the work of his successors, not only in neuroscientific matters, although this area is the specific object of this article, was a systematic analysis and evaluation of the Cartesian proposals in the search of a productive theoretical framework for Science and Philosophy. In Neuropsychology, it only began to be possible in the middle of 19th Century.

Keywords : René Descartes; cartesianism; neuroanatomy; neuropsychology; philosophy; machine-man; dualism.

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