| Summary: | Vitalism is an underappreciated and often misunderstood idea. This thesis seeks to explore the historical origins and meanings of vitalism in 19th century France; tracing the transition from medical vitalism in the Montpellier School in the late 18th and early 19th century to a largely philosophical vitalism in the late 19th 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 19th 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 20th century, and remains a concept relevant to our contemporary circumstances.
|
|---|
