Vitalizing Nature in the Enlightenment

Peter H. Reill

Published by University of California Press 2005

Vitalizing Nature in the Enlightenment

Peter H. Reill

https://doi.org/10.1525/9780520931008

Overview
Contents

About this book

This far-reaching study redraws the intellectual map of the Enlightenment and boldly reassesses the legacy of that highly influential period for us today. Peter Hanns Reill argues that in the middle of the eighteenth century, a major shift occurred in the way Enlightenment thinkers conceived of nature that caused many of them to reject the prevailing doctrine of mechanism and turn to a vitalistic model to account for phenomena in natural history, the life sciences, and chemistry. As he traces the ramifications of this new way of thinking through time and across disciplines, Reill provocatively complicates our understanding of the way key Enlightenment thinkers viewed nature. His sophisticated analysis ultimately questions postmodern narratives that have assumed a monolithic Enlightenment—characterized by the dominance of instrumental reason—that has led to many of the disasters of modern life.

Author / Editor information

Reill Peter H. :

Peter Hanns Reill is Professor of History and Director of the Center for Seventeenth and Eighteenth Century Studies at the University of California, Los Angeles, where he is also Director of the William Andrews Clark Memorial Library. Reill is author of The German Enlightenment and the Rise of Historicism (1975), and editor or coeditor of What's Left of Enlightenment? A Postmodern Question (2001), Wissenschaft als kulturelle Praxis, 1750-1900 (1999), Encyclopedia of Enlightenment (1996), and Visions of Empire: Voyages, Botany, and Representations of Nature (1996).

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
Contents Publicly Available Download PDF	vii
Acknowledgments Publicly Available Download PDF	ix
Introduction Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
Prologue: The Humboldt Brothers Confront Nature's Sublimity Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	17
I. Storming "the Temple of Error": Buffon, the Histoire naturelle, and the Midcentury Origins of Enlightenment Vitalism Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	33
2. Learning to "Read the Book of Nature": Vitalizing Chemistry in the Late Enlightenment Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	71
3. "Within the Circle of Organized Life" Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	119
4. The Metamorphoses of Change Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	159
5. From Enlightenment Vitalism to Romantic Naturphilosophie Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	199
Notes Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	257
Bibliography Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	327
Index Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	367

Language: English
Publisher: University of California Press
Pages
- Main content: 398

eBook

Published: June 6, 2005
ISBN: 9780520931008