Descartes on the healthy human body and the healthy human being

There seems to be a systematic incompatibility between Descartes\u27 proscription on teleology and the teleological functions characteristic of the healthy human in Descartes\u27 medicine. I argue that Descartes avoids this tension by distinguishing the types of teleology that he targets in his arguments against teleology from the types of teleology that he endorses in his physiology of the human body and the human being. These arguments preclude both immanent and divine intentional teleology from Descartes\u27 philosophy and concept of health; however, of the teleological principles that Descartes does admit into his medical philosophy, he positions himself to claim that well-being is well-functioning. Without compromise to the consistency of his metaphysics and physics, Descartes maintains a concept of human bodily health that he models on a heuristic teleology we ascribe to the human body and a concept of health for the human being that concerns the genuine functions God instituted in creating the human being as a composite of mind and body. Furthermore, these distinctions among different types of teleology and their corresponding concepts of health allow me to show how Descartes draws upon the pre-Cartesian history and philosophy of health and medicine and what he contributes to the mechanization of medicine