Models of Organic Organization in Montpellier Vitalism

Bibliographic Data

ID5836690
AuthorsCharles T Wolfe (0000-0002-7956-9085, Ghent University [email protected], corresponding author)
Year2017
Volume22
Issue2-3
Pages229-252
Publication date2017-06-07
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueEarly Science and Medicine (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1383-7427 • E-ISSN: 1573-3823
PublisherBrill (PUBLISHER • NL)
DOI10.1163/15733823-02223p06
OpenAlexW2566359529
LanguageEN
Citations received5
References cited9

The species of vitalism discussed here is a malleable construct, often with a poisonous reputation (but one which I want to rehabilitate), hovering in between the realms of the philosophy of biology, the history of medicine, and the scientific background of the Radical Enlightenment (case in point, the influence of vitalist medicine on Diderot). This is a more vital vitalism, or at least a more 'biologistic,' 'embodied,' medicalized vitalism. I distinguish between what I would call 'substantival' and 'functional' forms of vitalism, as applied to the eighteenth century. Substantival vitalism presupposes the existence of something like a (substantive) vital force which either plays a causal role in the natural world as studied by scientific means, or remains a kind of hovering, extra-causal entity. Functional vitalism tends to operate "post facto," from the existence of living bodies to the desire to find explanatory models that will do justice to their uniquely 'vital' properties in a way that fully mechanistic models (such as Cartesian mechanism) cannot. I discuss some representative figures of the Montpellier school as being functional rather than substantival vitalists, particularly as regards the models of organic organization which they develop, and make some suggestions as to how these relate to the then-nascent science of biology

Organicism · Vitalism · Historical and Literary Studies · Historical and Scientific Studies · Neurology and Historical Studies

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