II Jean Fernel and His Christian Platonic Interpretation of Galen

What is it about?

Inspired by Christian Platonism as developed in the late fifteenth-century Florentine milieu, the French physician Jean Fernel proposed a particular interpretation of Galen in a medico-philosophical work entitled "On the Hidden Causes of Things" (Paris, 1548). With this interpretation, he responded to the serious and urgent need for a reconciliation of the newly reconstituted Galen of Renaissance humanism with Christian faith. The present study examines Fernel's strategy and method in constructing this singular Galenic body of doctrine, special attention being given to the roles attributed to the Creator, the formative force, and the soul. Subsequently, an analysis of the notions of spirit and of its innate heat as indispensable instruments of Fernel's physiology will uncover the very target of his criticism of materialism. 1. Introduction 2. Les forces divines de la forme 3. Dieu le Créateur et la formation du corps humain 4. La nature divine et céleste de l’âme 5. La notion de la “faculté” 6. La force formative et le divin artisan dans le sperme 7. Le spiritus et sa chaleur innée 8. Les fonctions physiologiques et les causes occultes 9. La source de Fernel Conclusions

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