Article ID: CBB000932600

Endowed Molecules and Emergent Organization: The Maupertuis-Diderot Debate (2010)

unapi

Wolfe, Charles T. (Author)


Early Science and Medicine: A Journal for the Study of Science, Technology and Medicine in the Pre-modern Period
Volume: 15
Pages: 38--65


Publication Date: 2010
Edition Details: Part of a special issue.
Language: English

In his Système de la nature ou Essai sur les corps organisés (originally published in Latin in 1751 as Dissertatio inauguralis metaphysica de universali naturae systemate, under the pseudonym Dr Baumann), Pierre-Louis Moreau de Maupertuis, President of the Berlin Academy of Sciences and a natural philosopher with a strong interest in the modes of transmission of 'genetic' information, described living minima which he termed molecules, endowed with desire, memory and intelligence. Now, Maupertuis was a Leibnizian of sorts; his molecules possessed higher-level, 'mental' properties, recalling La Mettrie's statement in L'Homme-Machine, that Leibnizians have rather spiritualized matter than materialized the soul. But Maupertuis also debated this issue with Diderot, who critiqued this theory in the additions to his 1753 Pensées sur l'interprétation de la nature. Where Maupertuis attributes higher-level properties to his living minima, Diderot argues that these can only be 'organizational', i.e., properties of the whole. At issue here is the degree of commitment to a form of materialism.

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Article Cheung, Tobias (2010) Transitions and Borders between Animals, Humans and Machines 1600--1800: Introduction. Early Science and Medicine: A Journal for the Study of Science, Technology and Medicine in the Pre-modern Period (p. 1). unapi

Citation URI
https://data.isiscb.org/isis/citation/CBB000932600/

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Authors & Contributors
Kaitaro, Timo
Lloyd, Henry Martyn
Prunea-Bretonnet, Tinca
Roland, Jeanne
Nachtomy, Ohad
Wunderlich, Falk
Concepts
Philosophy
Mechanism; mechanical philosophy
Soul (philosophy)
Materialism
Philosophy of science
Natural philosophy
Time Periods
18th century
17th century
16th century
Early modern
Enlightenment
Places
France
England
Germany
Great Britain
Institutions
Université de Montpellier
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