| Summary: | The texts in which Descartes tries to give a mechanical account on the living form one of the major contributions to the history of the natural sciences. But, as a part of Cartesian physics, Cartesian biology has been considered as a reducing and insufficient or even dangerous theory by many historiographical or philoso phical traditions which supported the empiricism of the Lumières against the Cartesian system. How poor is the image of the Cartesian biomechanics when it is reduced to a sketchy ethical and ontological building of the animality. By analysing the elements that make Cartesian thought of living a science, this article tries to show that it is on the ground of knowledge that the status of the living body can be understood for what it is : an open assumption. Moral interpretations of the animal machine doctrine, which pretend not to see this epistemological aim in Descartes, can be prevailed of no historical or philosophical background to justify their biased reading.
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