Overview
- First comprehensive overview of Vitalism: an idea with ever increasing relevance to modern biological theory
- Comprehensive overview of multi- and trans- disciplinary approaches
- Combination of historical and contemporary analysis
Part of the book series: History, Philosophy and Theory of the Life Sciences (HPTL)
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Table of contents (14 chapters)
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Front Matter
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Revisiting Vitalist Themes in Nineteenth-Century Science
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Front Matter
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Twentieth-Century Debates on Vitalism in Science and Philosophy
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Front Matter
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Vitalism and Contemporary Biological Developments
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Front Matter
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Back Matter
Keywords
- Emergent Evolution
- Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire
- Homeostasis and vitalist roots of adaptation
- Jean-Baptiste Lamarck
- Lamarck
- Life and the Mind in Nineteenth-Century Britain
- Life as an Emergent Phenomenon
- Rethinking Organic Vitality in Germany
- The Origins of Canguilhem’s Vitalism
- Vitalism and the Organismic Approach
- Vitalism versus Emergent Materialism
- Vitalists’ Objections to Mechanistic Science
- Wilhelm Reich
- holism
- lineage and metabolism
- mechanism
- reductionism
- teleology
- vitalism
- vitalist themes
About this book
Vitalism is understood as impacting the history of the life sciences, medicine and philosophy, representing an epistemological challenge to the dominance of mechanism over the last 200 years, and partly revived with organicism in early theoretical biology. The contributions in this volume portray the history of vitalism from the end of the Enlightenment to the modern day, suggesting some reassessment of what it means both historically and conceptually. As such it includes a wide range of material, employing both historical and philosophical methodologies, and it is divided fairly evenly between 19th and 20th century historical treatments and more contemporary analysis. This volume presents a significant contribution to the current literature in the history and philosophy of science and the history of medicine.
Reviews
“It has provided language and frameworks for defining the nature of life that can be employed in concert with other philosophical doctrines. Indeed, by the end of the book, the essayists argue that vitalism is materialistic, and materialism is vitalistic. … The volume is worthwhile for any active philosophy of science program. Summing Up: Recommended. Upper-division undergraduate, graduate students, and researchers/faculty.” (A. K. Ackerberg-Hastings, Choice, Vol. 51 (6), February, 2014)
“The editors have assembled a fascinating selection of papers that examine the history of vitalism and trace its various developments from the end of the Enlightenment to the modern day, reassessing both its historical and conceptual import. … a compelling and insightful volume, which puts the spark back into the contemporary Vitalist debate.” (Adam Ferner, Philosophy, February, 2014)
“This collection is a rare and much welcome collective review of the diversity, vigor, and transform
ations of post-Enlightenment vitalism and associated schools of thought. It provides historical insights that are otherwise not available. … this book greatly enriches and complicates our understanding of modern vitalism.” (Ku-ming (Kevin) Chang, Early Science and Medicine, Vol. 19 (4), 2014)“Vitalism and the Scientific Image in Post-Enlightenment Life Science brings together cutting-edge analyses that will be of lasting interest to historians and philosophers of the life sciences and medicine, as well as to scientists working in these and related areas. … All three sections contain engaging essays that make important contributions to either the history of vitalism, its conceptual foundations, or its metaphysical assumptions.” (Pierre-Olivier Méthot, Journal of the History of Biology, Vol. 47, 2014)
“The present volume is distinctive in
its broad construal of vitalist arguments on the one hand, and on the other, its stated attempt to relate vitalism to the prevalent views of what it meant and means to be scientific. … The editors of this rich and diversified volume have gone a long way towards enabling the readers to concurrently study the intricate past of the problematique of vitalism and through its understanding, deeply enrich contemporary work and thinking.” (Snait B. Gissis, Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences, Vol. 47, 2014)Editors and Affiliations
Bibliographic Information
Book Title: Vitalism and the Scientific Image in Post-Enlightenment Life Science, 1800-2010
Editors: Sebastian Normandin, Charles T. Wolfe
Series Title: History, Philosophy and Theory of the Life Sciences
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-2445-7
Publisher: Springer Dordrecht
eBook Packages: Humanities, Social Sciences and Law, Philosophy and Religion (R0)
Copyright Information: Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2013
Hardcover ISBN: 978-94-007-2444-0Published: 28 June 2013
Softcover ISBN: 978-94-017-8193-0Published: 15 July 2015
eBook ISBN: 978-94-007-2445-7Published: 15 June 2013
Series ISSN: 2211-1948
Series E-ISSN: 2211-1956
Edition Number: 1
Number of Pages: VI, 377
Number of Illustrations: 5 b/w illustrations
Topics: Philosophy of Biology, Systems Biology, Medicine/Public Health, general, History of Science