Thesis ID: CBB001560507

Visions of Vitalism: Medicine, Philosophy and the Soul in Nineteenth Century France (2006)

unapi

Normandin, Sebastian (Author)


McGill University (Canada)


Publication Date: 2006
Physical Details: 307 pp.
Language: English

Vitalism is an underappreciated and often misunderstood idea. This thesis seeks to explore the historical origins and meanings of vitalism in 19 th century France; tracing the transition from medical vitalism in the Montpellier School in the late 18 th and early 19 th century to a largely philosophical vitalism in the late 19 th century, emblemized by Henri Bergson. I argue that the decline of medical vitalism was brought about by the rise of scientific medicine, the experimentalism of physiologists like Claude Bernard and the growing influence of positivism in late 19 th century France. I see the seminal moment of this transition from a metaphysical to a scientific world-view in the materialism-spiritualism controversy of the 1850s, which was sparked by the development of modern biology and the experimental life sciences. Despite its general disappearance from mainstream medicine and science, vitalism continued to have echoes in a number of fields in the 20 th century, and remains a concept relevant to our contemporary circumstances.

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Description Traces the transition from medical vitalism of the late 18th century to the philosophical vitalism of people like Henri Bergson in the late 19th century. Cited in Diss. Abstr. Int. A 68/03 (2007). Pub. no. AAT NR25222.


Citation URI
https://data.isiscb.org/isis/citation/CBB001560507/

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Authors & Contributors
McVaugh, Michael Rogers
Bottaccioli, Francesco
Wolfe, Charles T.
Williams, Elizabeth A.
Waisse, Silvia
Valentino, Gianfranco
Concepts
Medicine
Vitalism
Physiology
Biology
Animal physiology
Philosophy of medicine
Time Periods
18th century
19th century
Medieval
Enlightenment
20th century, early
17th century
Places
France
Germany
Europe
China
Institutions
Université de Montpellier
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