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Thesis ID: CBB001560507

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

McGill University (Canada)
Publication date: 2006
Language: English

Publication Date: 2006
Physical Details: 307 pp.

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Vitalism Animal physiology Medicine Soul (philosophy) 19th century France Bernard, Claude Bergson, Henri Louis Université de Montpellier

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.

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