The Animal Economy as Object and Program in Montpellier Vitalism

Science in Context 21 (4):537-579 (2008)
  Copy   BIBTEX

Abstract

Our aim in this paper is to bring to light the importance of the notion of économie animale in Montpellier vitalism, as a hybrid concept which brings together the structural and functional dimensions of the living body – dimensions which hitherto had primarily been studied according to a mechanistic model, or were discussed within the framework of Stahlian animism. The celebrated image of the bee-swarm expresses this structural-functional understanding of living bodies quite well: “One sees them press against each other, mutually supporting each other, forming a kind of whole, in which each living part, in its own way, by means of the correspondence and directions of its motions, enables this kind of life to be sustained in the body” (Encyclopédie, article “Observation,” by Ménuret de Chambaud). What is important here is that every component part is always a living part, i.e., every structural unit is always functional. Interestingly, while the twin notions of ‘animal economy’ and organisation are presented as improvements over a mechanistic perspective, they are nonetheless compatible with an expanded sense of mechanism and by extension, with materialism as reflected notably in the writings of Ménuret and Bordeu. We thus propose both a revision and reconstruction of the historical status of the ‘animal economy’, and a reflection on its conceptual status.

Other Versions

No versions found

Links

PhilArchive



    Upload a copy of this work     Papers currently archived: 101,880

External links

Setup an account with your affiliations in order to access resources via your University's proxy server

Through your library

Similar books and articles

From substantival to functional vitalism and beyond: animas, organisms and attitudes.Charles T. Wolfe - 2011 - Eidos: Revista de Filosofía de la Universidad Del Norte 14:212-235.
Models of Organic Organization in Montpellier Vitalism.Charles T. Wolfe - 2017 - Early Science and Medicine 22 (2-3):229-252.
Forms of materialist embodiment.Charles T. Wolfe - 2012 - In Matthew Landers & Brian Muñoz (eds.), Anatomy and the Organization of Knowledge, 1500-1850. Pickering & Chatto.
What Is Living and What Is Dead in Political Vitalism?Cat Moir - 2022 - In Christopher Donohue & Charles T. Wolfe (eds.), Vitalism and Its Legacy in Twentieth Century Life Sciences and Philosophy. Springer Verlag. pp. 239-261.

Analytics

Added to PP
2014-01-27

Downloads
76 (#278,538)

6 months
15 (#217,805)

Historical graph of downloads
How can I increase my downloads?

Author's Profile

Charles T. Wolfe
Université de Toulouse Jean-Jaurès

Citations of this work

Do organisms have an ontological status?Charles T. Wolfe - 2010 - History and Philosophy of the Life Sciences 32 (2-3):195-232.
A happiness fit for organic bodies: La Mettrie's medical Epicureanism.Charles T. Wolfe - 2009 - In Neven Leddy & Avi Lifschitz (eds.), Epicurus in the Enlightenment. Oxford: Voltaire Foundation. pp. 69--83.
The organism as ontological go-between. Hybridity, boundaries and degrees of reality in its conceptual history.Charles T. Wolfe - 2014 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part C: Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences 1:http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.shps.
Vitalism Now – A Problematic.Monica Greco - 2021 - Theory, Culture and Society 38 (2):47-69.

View all 42 citations / Add more citations

References found in this work

A treatise of human nature.David Hume & D. G. C. Macnabb (eds.) - 1739 - Oxford,: Clarendon press.
Thinking about mechanisms.Peter Machamer, Lindley Darden & Carl F. Craver - 2000 - Philosophy of Science 67 (1):1-25.
Mind, Language and Reality: Philosophical Papers.Hilary Putnam - 1975 - New York: Cambridge University Press.
A Treatise of Human Nature.David Hume & A. D. Lindsay - 1958 - Philosophical Quarterly 8 (33):379-380.

View all 40 references / Add more references