Cervello e natura umana: note su Descartes e il dibattito medico sei-settecentesco sulla corporeità della mente
In The Man Machine (1738) La Mettrie criticizes the received view of Descartes’s portrait as radically devaluing the body in favour of the mind. Descartes’ bête-machine theory, according to La Mettrie, laid the groundwork for medical materialism. In this chapter I will focus on the work of an early Dutch proponent of Cartesian physiology, Hendrik Le Roy (Henricus Regius, 1598-1679), who saw the mental activity and moral character as functions of the human body and the brain.