Vitalizing Nature in the Enlightenment

Bibliographic Data

ID5836627
AuthorsMatthew Daniel Eddy (0000-0002-9528-4864, Durham University, corresponding author)
Year2006
Volume19
Issue1
Pages178-179
Publication date2006-02-16
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueSocial History of Medicine (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0951-631X • E-ISSN: 1477-4666
PublisherOxford University Press (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1093/shm/hkj029
OpenAlexW2102878374
LanguageEN
Citations received18

Peter Hanns Reill, Vitalizing Nature in the Enlightenment , Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005. Pp. 398. $35.95. ISBN 0-520-24135-5. During the early modern period, many theories were used to discuss the source of life; that 'spark', divine or other, which differentiated animate from inanimate matter. On the eve of the eighteenth century, the two competing schools that sought to explain this phenomenon were the mechanists and the vitalists. The former took their lead from Leiden's Hermann Boerhaave and the latter followed the alchemically influenced writings of Halle's Georg Ernst Stahl. As the century progressed, the mathematicians slowly Newtonised nature. Their triumphant march was side-tracked by David Hume's razor-sharp scepticism, but they really did not face any formidable foes until they were unmercifully dismantled by the iron mind of Immanuel Kant. The key terms that one needed to understand in this progression were 'law', 'order' and 'the Great Chain of Being'. Nowadays such a picture of the Enlightenment is seen as being too simplistic. Over the past four decades, historians have been dipping their quills in postmodern ink imported from the realms of sociology, anthropology and literary criticism. The result has been a more nuanced picture of the body, mind and, for some, the soul. Yet, as Peter Hanns Reill suggests in Vitalizing Nature , such methods have not been able to offer a clear definition of 'vitalism' as it existed between 1750 and 1820. His interpretation of vitalism eclectically employs the philosophy of language, Michel Foucault's historical archaeology and a bit of sociological prosopography. Since vitalism was a rather protean concept, he sensibly focuses on German thinkers, especially authors and teachers who would go on to influence the young Alexander and Wilhelm von Humboldt. To organise the book he employs three categories to describe the chronological progression of vitalism: mechanism, Enlightenment vitalism and Naturphilosophie . Those acquainted with works on the history of vitalism will be familiar with the contours of the first two, but will find the second to be more unique

Skepticism · Soul · Vitalism · History of Science and Natural History

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