IsisCB Explore

Article ID: CBB000831759

Regulating Agents, Functional Interactions, and Stimulus-Reaction-Schemes: The Concept of “Organism” in the Organic System Theories of Stahl, Bordeu, and Barthez (2008)

Science in Context
Volume: 21
Pages: 495--519

Publication Date: 2008
Edition Details: Part of a special issue on “Medical Vitalism in the Enlightenment”
Language: English

Outside Links

WorldCat

Google Scholar

JSTOR

Academia.edu

Organicism Fundamental concepts Vitalism Biology 18th century Bordeu, Théophile de Stahl, Georg Ernst Barthez, Paul Joseph

In this essay, I sketch a problem-based framework within which I locate the concept of organism in the system theories of Georg Ernst Stahl, Théophile Bordeu, and Paul-Joseph Barthez. Around 1700, Stahl coins the word organism for a certain concept of order. For him, the concept explains the form of order of living bodies that is categorically different from the order of other (dead) bodies or composites. At the end of the century, the organism as a specific form of order becomes a major topos in many discourses. I will not so much focus on experiments and objects as on basic problems that contribute to the general framework of the concept of organism as a key concept of the vitalist movement between 1700 and 1800. For this purpose, I will investigate the combination of three explanatory tools. These tools refer to regulating agents, functional interactions, and stimulus-reactions-schemes within individual organic systems of forces. They are related to various themes -- especially to energy, sensibility, and sympathy. I will retrace some aspects of these relations.

...More

Included in

Article Wolfe, Charles T. (2008) Introduction: Vitalism without Metaphysics? Medical Vitalism in the Enlightenment. Science in Context (p. 461). unapi

Citation URI

http://data.isiscb.org/isis/citation/CBB000831759/

Citations Indexes

Similar Citations

Article Waisse, Silvia; Amaral, Maria Thereza Cera Galvão do; Alfonso-Goldfarb, Ana M.; (2011)
Raízes do vitalismo francês: Bordeu e Barthez, entre Paris e Montpellier (/isis/citation/CBB001420530/)

Thesis Chang, Ku-ming; (2002)
The Matter of Life: Georg Ernst Stahl and the Reconceptualizations of Matter, Body and Life in Early Modern Europe (/isis/citation/CBB001562441/)

Article Peterson, Erik; (2014)
The Conquest of Vitalism or the Eclipse of Organicism? The 1930s Cambridge Organizer Project and the Social Network of Mid-Twentieth-Century Biology (/isis/citation/CBB001214224/)

Article Allen, Garland E.; (2005)
Mechanism, Vitalism and Organicism in Late Nineteenth- and Twentieth-Century Biology: The Importance of Historical Context (/isis/citation/CBB000770690/)

Book Normandin, Sebastien; Wolfe, Charles T.; (2013)
Vitalism and the Scientific Image in Post-Enlightenment Life Science, 1800--2010 (/isis/citation/CBB001213190/)

Book Christopher Donohue; Charles T. Wolfe; (2023)
Vitalism and Its Legacy in Twentieth Century Life Sciences and Philosophy (/isis/citation/CBB947852171/)

Article Boury, Dominique; (2008)
Irritability and Sensibility: Key Concepts in Assessing the Medical Doctrines of Haller and Bordeu (/isis/citation/CBB000831760/)

Article Wolfe, Charles T.; (2008)
Introduction: Vitalism without Metaphysics? Medical Vitalism in the Enlightenment (/isis/citation/CBB000831757/)

Article Francesco Paolo de Ceglia; (2021)
Matter Is Not Enough: Georg Ernst Stahl, Friedrich Hoffmann, and the Issue of Animism (/isis/citation/CBB256166445/)

Article Chang, Ku-ming (Kevin); (2011)
Alchemy as Studies of Life and Matter: Reconsidering the Place of Vitalism in Early Modern Chymistry (/isis/citation/CBB001034554/)

Chapter Carvallo, Sarah; (2006)
Histoire du tonus: ruptures ou continuité? (/isis/citation/CBB001024260/)

Article Wolfe, Charles T.; Terada, Motoichi; (2008)
The Animal Economy as Object and Program in Montpellier Vitalism (/isis/citation/CBB000831761/)

Book Raphaele Andrault; (2016)
La Raison Des Corps: Mecanisme Et Sciences Medicales (/isis/citation/CBB538945258/)

Article Ferrandis, Jean-Jacques; Plessis, Jean-Louis; (2007)
Théophile de Bordeu (1722--1776): Un homme d'esprit, de connaissances éclectiques et sachant séduire (/isis/citation/CBB000931841/)

Article Cheung, Tobias; (2010)
Omnis Fibra Ex Fibra: Fibre Œconomies in Bonnet's and Diderot's Models of Organic Order (/isis/citation/CBB000932601/)

Article Gierer, Alfred; (1996)
Organisms-mechanisms: Stahl, Wolff, and the case against reductionist exclusion (/isis/citation/CBB000073953/)

Book Engelhardt, Dietrich von; Gierer, Alfred; (2000)
Georg Ernst Stahl (1659-1734) in wissenschaftshistorischer Sicht (/isis/citation/CBB000410023/)

Article Cheung, Tobias; (2007)
Tonische Bewegung, Energie und ratio: Georg Ernst Stahls Agentenmodell des “Organismus” und die kategorielle Differenz zwischen Lebendigem und Unlebendigem (/isis/citation/CBB000773097/)

Chapter Ceglia, Francesco Paolo de; (2006)
Soul Power: Georg Ernst Stahl and the Debate on Generation (/isis/citation/CBB000771981/)

Article Cheung, Tobias; (2010)
What Is an “Organism”? On the Occurrence of a New Term and Its Conceptual Transformations 1680--1850 (/isis/citation/CBB001034544/)