Hiro Hirai, Radboud University

"The Medical Context Of the Scientific Revolution"

Early modern science coincided with the gradual professionalization of its actors. Many of their counterparts in the precedent period, namely the sixteenth century, were physicians or medically educated philosophers. Despite a variety of motivations and points of departure, those "physician-philosophers" often addressed life phenomena. Their reflections on biological or medical questions contributed, albeit in different ways, to the reorientation of philosophy, which was to become crucial in the shaping of early modern science. This move will remain largely inexplicable unless its "medical context" is taken into account.