Crignon Claire, Antoine-Mahut Delphine
Gesnerus. 2014;71(2):187-203.
This article examines the place that has been reserved for medicine in the historiography of the sciences. More precisely, it focuses on the motifs that have lead historians of science to grant only a minor role to medicine within the movement commonly designated by the notion of the "scientific revolution". Among those motifs, the persistent and late application of teleological schemas in the thinking of the biological and the difficulties in "mathematizing" anatomy are often invoked. Starting with an overview of the critical literature on the topic, this bibliographical essay shows how the situation has changed over the last decades. The opposition between, on the one hand, the physical sciences founded on a model of mechanistic explanation of nature and, on the other hand, the life sciences that remained guided by a finalist mode of thinking are today much put into question. What we find today is more open reflection on the diversity of "models" for understanding the living, and on how to integrate them into more complex schemas than those that simply oppose mechanism and teleology. The essay is finally based on discussions and debates among medical doctors and philosophers in the modern period, and insists on the importance of studying this "medico-philosophical" tradition in order to avoid reconstructing a posteriori a mythical history that trends to consecrate a single model of rationality.
本文考察了医学在科学史编纂中所占的位置。更确切地说,它聚焦于那些致使科学史家在通常被 “科学革命” 这一概念所指称的运动中仅赋予医学次要角色的主题。在这些主题中,目的论模式在生物学思维中的持续且滞后的应用以及 “解剖学数学化” 的困难常被提及。这篇文献综述文章从对该主题的批判性文献的概述入手,展示了过去几十年情况是如何变化的。一方面以机械论自然解释模型为基础的物理科学与另一方面仍受目的论思维模式引导的生命科学之间的对立如今受到了诸多质疑。我们如今看到的是对理解生命的 “模型” 多样性以及如何将它们整合到比简单对立机械论和目的论更为复杂的模式中的更为开放的思考。本文最后基于现代时期医生和哲学家之间的讨论与辩论,并强调研究这一 “医学 - 哲学” 传统的重要性,以避免事后重构一种倾向于推崇单一理性模式的神话般的历史。