The Status of Leibniz’ Medical Experiments: A Provisional Empiricism?

This chapter examines the status of medical experiments using the Leibnizian conception of knowledge. It considers whether experimentation is a perceptive foretaste or a real condition for the advancement of knowledge. The chapter argues that acting on bodies could be a way to understand them. It establishes a place for medical experiments in the field of learning. The chapter identifies a in Leibniz' medical texts. The chapter describes the central importance of the ambivalent notion of action ( actio in se ipsum ) in understanding the internal force at work in physical bodies as a sign of substantiality. Leibniz explains in practical terms how to build a microscope, and how large numbers of them can open the way to a theatre of nature consisting of a whole cabinet of microscopes which will lead to rapid progress. Keywords: Leibnizian conception; medical experiments; microscope; provisional empiricism