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Here is a common claim: All of what we know and want is filtered through the states of the body. If we know something, it is by means of our experiences; if we experience something, it is by means of our senses; if we want something, it is something about the body. The relationship between the body and the self has been one of the most contested questions in the history of knowledge. In the early-modern period, the question of the relationship between the “self” and the “body” was deeply tied up with medicine, with explanations of the workings of organic bodies, and with answers to basic questions about the nature of the world and humans in that world. For all of our work in medicine, natural science, and philosophy, the question still remains: what do we mean when we talk about selves? What is their relationship with the thing we call bodies? How does the moral principle of “wellness” apply to that relationship? By the end of this class, I hope you will have thought about your ingrained assumptions about your body and your relationship to it (and other people and their relationships with their bodies!) This course is grounded on weekly close reading of early-modern argument-bearing texts, ranging from Plato’s “Phaedo” to Newton’s “On Gravity” to Stahl’s “Idle work.” Each of these texts represents an attempt to understand and express the nature of the body, the relationship of that body to the “self” and what constitutes wellness in that relationship. I have chosen these text not because reading didactic accounts of wellness comprises a complete understanding of the way that people thought about the body – people interact with their bodies as patients, partners, owners, pleasure-seekers, prisoners, and other roles – but because these ideas question deeply understood dogma about what it means to have a body. I hope you can bring these ideas to bear on your experiences and ideas so you can deploy an arsenal of thoughts when you inspect your bodily experiences.