Quali-quantitative measurement in Francis Bacon’s medicine: towards a new branch of mixed mathematics

In Simone Guidi & Joaquim Braga (eds.), The Quantification of Life and Health from the Sixteenth to the Nineteenth Century. Intersections of Medicine and Philosophy. Palgrave Macmillan. pp. 89-109 (2023)
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Abstract

In this chapter we will argue, firstly, that Bacon’s engages in a pecu-liar form of mathematization of nature that develops a quali-quantitative methodology of measurement. Secondly, we will show that medicine is one of the disciplines where that dual way of measurement is practiced. In the first section of the chapter, we will expose the ontology involved in the Baconian proposal of measurement of nature. The second section will address the place that mixed mathematics occupies in Bacon’s scheme of scientific branches and will suggest that a proper advancement of medicine can generate a new branch of mixed mathematics. The next section will reconstruct Bacon’s approach to measurement and expose its quali-quantitative import. In the last section, we will show some examples of medicine in which this quali-quantitative measurement is applied.

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Silvia Manzo
Universidad Nacional de La Plata

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