In Mechanization of the Heart: Harvey and Descartes Thomas Fuchs discusses the similarities and differences of the views of the two seventeenth-century scholars William Harvey and Rene Descartes on the beart and circulationof the blood; Fuch traces the reception of the two views in the medical literature of the time and the influence both views had. In Mechanization of the Heart: Harvey and Descartes Thomas Fuchs begins by comparing the views of William Harvey [1578-1657] and Rene Descartes [1596-1650] on the heart and the circulation of the blood through the body. These two seventeenth-century scholars -- one a British medical doctor, the other a French philosopher and mathemetician -- differed substantially in their beliefs: they both accepted the idea of circulation of the blood, but differed on the action of the heart. Fuchs traces the ways the opposing views were received, revised, rejected, or renewed in succeeding generations by medical writers in various parts of Europe. He then examines Harvey's approach to cardiac and circulatory physiology, mainly through an examination of Harvey's book De motu cordis: he follows with a discussion of the background in Aristotelian philosophy that was the requirement for all studies in medicineand how that affected Harvey's beliefs. Fuchs then turns to Descartes's presentation of Harvey's views and shows how his view, rather than Harvey's, was accepted in Europe at that time. Marjorie Grene brings to the translation herdistinguished background in philosophy and her keen insights into medical philosophy. Thomas Fuchs teaches psychiatry at the Rupert-Karls-Universitat, Heidelberg. MarjorieGrene is Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at the University of California at Davis, and Adjunct Professor and Honorary Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at Virginia Tech University.

This extensively revised second edition traces the development of the basic concepts in cardiovascular physiology in light of the accumulated experimental and clinical evidence. It considers the early embryonic circulation, where blood circulation suggests the existence of a motive force, tightly coupled to the metabolic demands of the tissues. It proposes that rather than being an organ of propulsion, the heart, serves as an organ of control, generating pressure by rhythmically impeding blood flow. New and expanded chapters cover the arterial pulse, circulation in the upright posture, microcirculation and functional heart morphology. Heart and Circulation offers a new perspective for deeper understanding of the human cardiovascular system. It is therefore a thought-provoking resource for cardiologists, cardiac surgeons and trainees interested in models of human circulation.

An examination of the fundamental role cybernetics played in the birth of cognitive science and the light this sheds on current controversies. The conceptual history of cognitive science remains for the most part unwritten. In this groundbreaking book, Jean-Pierre Dupuy—one of the principal architects of cognitive science in France—provides an important chapter: the legacy of cybernetics. Contrary to popular belief, Dupuy argues, cybernetics represented not the anthropomorphization of the machine but the mechanization of the human. The founding fathers of cybernetics—some of the greatest minds of the twentieth century, including John von Neumann, Norbert Wiener, Warren McCulloch, and Walter Pitts—intended to construct a materialist and mechanistic science of mental behavior that would make it possible at last to resolve the ancient philosophical problem of mind and matter. The importance of cybernetics to cognitive science, Dupuy argues, lies not in its daring conception of the human mind in terms of the functioning of a machine but in the way the strengths and weaknesses of the cybernetics approach can illuminate controversies that rage today—between cognitivists and connectionists, eliminative materialists and Wittgensteinians, functionalists and anti-reductionists. Dupuy brings to life the intellectual excitement that attended the birth of cognitive science sixty years ago. He separates the promise of cybernetic ideas from the disappointment that followed as cybernetics was rejected and consigned to intellectual oblivion. The mechanization of the mind has reemerged today as an all-encompassing paradigm in the convergence of nanotechnology, biotechnology, information technology, and cognitive science. The tensions, contradictions, paradoxes, and confusions Dupuy discerns in cybernetics offer a cautionary tale for future developments in cognitive science.

The idea of intelligent machines has become part of popular culture. Tracing the history of the actual science of machine intelligence reveals a rich network of cross-disciplinary contributions, and the origins of ideas now central to artificial intelligence, artificial life, cognitive science and neuroscience.

The essays in the present volume attempt to historically reconstruct the various dependencies of philosophical and scientific knowledge of the material and technical culture of the early modern era and to draw systematic conclusions for the writing of early modern history of science. The divisive transformation of humanist scholarly culture, the Scholastic school philosophy, as well as magic in the form of a philosophy of practice is always associated with the work of Francis Bacon. All of these essays in this volume reflect the close interaction between technical models and knowledge production in natural philosophy, natural history and epistemology. It becomes clear that the technological developments of the early modern era cannot be adequately depicted in the form of a pure history of technology but rather only as part of a broader, cultural history of the sciences. Contributors include: Todd Andrew Borlik, Arianna Borrelli, Thomas Brandstetter, Daniel Damler, Luisa Dolza, Moritz Epple, Berthold Heinecke, Dana Jalobeanu, J rgen Klein, Staffan M ller-Wille, Romano Nanni, Jarmo Pulkkinen, Pablo Schneider, Andr s Vaccari, Benjamin Wardhaugh, Sophie Weeks, and Claus Zittel.

This book discusses the Aristotelian setting of Thomas Hobbes' main work on natural philosophy, De Corpore (1655). Leijenhorst's study puts particular emphasis on the second part of the work, entitled Philosophia Prima. Although Hobbes presents his mechanistic philosophy of nature as an outright replacement of Aristotelian physics, he continued to use the vocabulary and arguments of sixteenth and seventeenth-century Aristotelianism. Leijenhorst shows that while in some cases this common vocabulary hides profound conceptual innovations, in other cases Hobbes' self-proclaimed "new" philosophy is simply old wine in new sacks. Leijenhorst's book substantially enriches our insight in the complexity of the rise of modern philosophy and the way it struggled with the Aristotelian heritage.

John Heysham Gibbon, Jr., M.D., was the first researcher to develop a heart-lung machine that could fully support an adult's cardiac and respiratory functions during surgical procedures to repair defects in the heart and lungs. The difficulty of such a task can be seen in the number of people who attempted it for over a century: the list is long. Gibbon succeeded on May 6, 1953, when he repaired an atrial-septal defect with the patient supported entirely by the machine for 27 minutes. Ada Romaine-Davis contends that few realize how long Gibbon worked to achieve this success. To rectify the situation, Romaine-Davis here provides a thorough study of Gibbon and his accomplishment. She shows how Gibbon overcame discouragement from his peers and mentors and obtained crucial support from IBM Board Chairman Thomas Watson. She examines each of the models produced by Gibbon and puts his achievement into historical perspective. Gibbon himself chose not to pursue cardiac surgery; he remained a thoracic surgeon. Others went on to develop the knowledge and skills that today make open-heart surgery as safe as other major surgical procedures. As Romaine-Davis amply demonstrates, these pioneers stand on the shoulders of a stubborn, persevering, single-minded genius whose determination to leave a legacy to his profession resulted in the one thing essential for sustained progress in heart surgery: John Gibbon's heart-lung machine. This meticulously researched study will make fascinating reading for physicians—especially surgeons—as well as for students and scholars of medical history and science and technology.