IsisCB Explore

Article ID: CBB001213582

Whytt and the Idea of Power: Physiological Evidence as a Challenge to the Eighteenth-Century Criticism of the Notion of Power (2013)

Early Science and Medicine: A Journal for the Study of Science, Technology and Medicine in the Pre-modern Period
Volume: 18, no. 4-5
Issue: 4 - 5
Pages: 381-404
Publication date: 2013
Language: English

Publication Date: 2013
Edition Details: Part of a special issue on empiricism and the relationship between medicine and philosophy in the 17th and 18th centuries.

Outside Links

WorldCat

Google Scholar

JSTOR

In An Essay on the Vital and Involuntary Motions of Animals, Robert Whytt maintained that the muscular motions that perform the natural functions of the organism are caused by an immaterial power. Here we consider to what extent the philosophical criticism of power urged by Locke and Hume may jeopardize his thesis, how his response mobilizes the resources of the Scottish experimental theism and whether he makes an original use of such resources. First, we examine various pieces of experimental evidence from which Whytt infers the need to evoke this power, before showing how they prompt him to stand by the immaterial power in the face of the empiricist criticisms. Following this, we explore the link Whytt makes between power and agency, in particular comparing his thought with Locke's. Lastly, we examine his work in the light of Hume's criticism regarding the question of whether a power may be felt.

...More

Included in

Article Crignon, Claire; Zelle, Carsten; Allocca, Nunzio (2013) Introduction. Early Science and Medicine: A Journal for the Study of Science, Technology and Medicine in the Pre-modern Period (pp. 329-338). unapi

Citation URI

data.isiscb.org/p/isis/citation/CBB001213582

This citation is part of the Isis database.

Citations Indexes

Similar Citations

Article Etchegaray, Claire; (2013)
Whytt and the Idea of Power: Physiological Evidence as a Challenge to the Eighteenth-Century Criticism of the Notion of Power (/p/isis/citation/CBB001321161/)

Article Bassiri, Nima; (2013)
The Brain and the Unconscious Soul in Eighteenth-Century Nervous Physiology: Robert Whytt's “Sensorium Commune” (/p/isis/citation/CBB001212822/)

Chapter Frixione, Eugenio; (2007)
Irritable Glue: The Haller-Whytt Controversy on the Mechanism of Muscle Contraction (/p/isis/citation/CBB001032147/)

Chapter Guido Cimino; (2016)
Il problema della sensazione nell'opera di Alessandro Pascoli tra Cartesio e Haller (/p/isis/citation/CBB950423941/)

Book Williams, B. Innes; (2000)
The Matter of Motion and Galvani's Frogs. (/p/isis/citation/CBB000110057/)

Article Schmidgen, Henning; (2013)
Between the Laboratory and the Museum: Claude Bernard and the Problem of Time (/p/isis/citation/CBB001252926/)

Article Gregoric, Pavel; Kuhar, Martin; (2014)
Aristotle's Physiology of Animal Motion: On Neura and Muscles (/p/isis/citation/CBB001321034/)

Article Diederik F. Janssen; (2024)
Developing Sex: From Recremental Semen to Developmental Endocrinology (/p/isis/citation/CBB445960367/)

Thesis Bassiri, Nima Rad; (2010)
Dislocations of the Brain: Subjectivity and Cerebral Topology from Descartes to Nineteenth-Century Neuroscience (/p/isis/citation/CBB001567167/)

Article Tamás Demeter; (2023)
Sympathetic Organizations: Body, mind, and society in Robert Whytt and David Hume (/p/isis/citation/CBB019285047/)

Article Wübben, Yvonne; (2010)
Transhumane Physiologie. Bilder und Praktiken des Reflexes (Thomas Willis, Robert Whytt, Marshall Hall) (/p/isis/citation/CBB000932602/)

Chapter Rocca, Julius; (2007)
William Cullen (1710--1790) and Robert Whytt (1714--1766) on the Nervous System (/p/isis/citation/CBB001032145/)

Chapter Vickers, Neil; (2011)
Aspects of Character and Sociability in Scottish Enlightenment Medicine (/p/isis/citation/CBB001251015/)

Article Dyde, Sean; (2015)
Cullen, a Cautionary Tale (/p/isis/citation/CBB001552767/)

Thesis Meier, Richard Y.; (1979)
“Sympathy” as a concept in early neurophysiology (/p/isis/citation/CBB001563200/)

Article Daszkiewicz, Piotr; (2015)
Pyrenean Plants for the Botanical Garden of Berlin: Botany as a Symbol of Power during the Napoleonic Era (/p/isis/citation/CBB001500448/)

Article Koch, Ebba; (2012)
The Symbolic Possession of the World: European Cartography in Mughal Allegory and History Painting (/p/isis/citation/CBB001500543/)

Book Amélia Polónia; Fabiano Bracht; Gisele Cristina da Conceição; Monique Palma; (2016)
História e ciência: ciência e poder na primeira idade global (/p/isis/citation/CBB561634100/)

Article Federico Boccaccini; Anna Marmodoro; (2017)
Powers, Abilities and Skills in Early Modern Philosophy (/p/isis/citation/CBB647362818/)

Book Piccolino, Marco; (2004)
The Taming of the Ray: Electric Fish Research in the Enlightenment from John Walsh to Alessandro Volta (/p/isis/citation/CBB000650187/)