18th Century Philosophy

From substantival to functional vitalism and beyond, or from Stahlian animas to Canguilhemian attitudes

by Charles Wolfe

Eidos 14 (2011), pp. 212-235

I distinguish between what I call ‘substantival’ and ‘functional’ forms of vitalism in the eighteenth century.... more I distinguish between what I call ‘substantival’ and ‘functional’ forms of vitalism in the eighteenth century. Substantival vitalism presupposes the existence of something like a (substantive) vital force which either plays a causal role in the natural world as studied by scientific means, or remains a kind of hovering, extra-causal entity. Functional vitalism tends to operate ‘post facto’, from the existence of living bodies to the desire to find explanatory models that will do justice to their uniquely ‘vital’ properties in a way that fully mechanistic (Cartesian, Boerhaavian etc.) models cannot. I discuss some representative figures of the Montpellier school (Bordeu, Ménuret, Fouquet) as being functional rather than substantival vitalists. Time allowing, I will make an additional point regarding the reprisal of vitalism(s) in ‘late modernity’, as some call it; from Hans Driesch to Georges Canguilhem. I suggest that in addition to the substantival and functional varieties, we then encounter a third species of vitalism, which I term ‘attitudinal’, as it argues for vitalism as a kind of attitude.

Sensibility as vital force or as property of matter in mid-eighteenth-century debates

by Charles Wolfe

draft version (2011); forthcoming in Henry Martyn Lloyd, ed., Sensibilité: The Knowing Body in the Enlightenment (Oxford: Voltaire Foundation)

Sensibility, in any of its myriad realms – moral, physical, aesthetic, medical and so on – seems to be a paramount... more Sensibility, in any of its myriad realms – moral, physical, aesthetic, medical and so on – seems to be a paramount case of a higher-level, intentional property, not a basic property. Diderot famously made the bold and attributive move of postulating that matter itself senses, or that sensibility (perhaps better translated ‘sensitivity’ here) is a general or universal property of matter, even if he at times took a step back from this claim and called it a “supposition.” Crucially, sensibility is here playing the role of a ‘booster’: it enables materialism to provide a full and rich account of the phenomena of conscious, sentient life, contrary to what its opponents hold: for if matter can sense, and sensibility is not a merely mechanical process, then the loftiest cognitive plateaus are accessible to materialist analysis, or at least belong to one and the same world as the rest of matter. This was noted by the astute anti-materialist critic, the Abbé Lelarge de Lignac, who, in his 1751 Lettres à un Amériquain, criticized Buffon for “granting to the body [la machine, a common term for the body at the time] a quality which is essential to minds, namely sensibility.” This view, here attributed to Buffon and definitely held by Diderot, was comparatively rare. If we look for the sources of this concept, the most notable ones are physiological and medical treatises by prominent figures such as Robert Whytt, Albrecht von Haller and the Montpellier vitalist Théophile de Bordeu. We then have, or so I shall try to sketch out, an intellectual landscape in which new – or newly articulated – properties such as irritability and sensibility are presented either as an experimental property of muscle fibers, that can be understood mechanistically (Hallerian irritability, as studied recently by Hubert Steinke and Dominique Boury) or a property of matter itself (whether specifically living matter as in Bordeu and his fellow montpelliérains Ménuret and Fouquet, or matter in general, as in Diderot). I am by no means convinced that it is one and the same ‘sensibility’ that is at issue in debates between these figures (as when Bordeu attacks Haller’s distinction between irritability and sensibility and claims that ‘his own’ property of sensibility is both more correct and more fundamental in organic beings), but I am interested in mapping out a topography of the problem of sensibility as property of matter or as vital force in mid-eighteenth-century debates – not an exhaustive cartography of all possible positions or theories, but an attempt to understand the ‘triangulation’ of three views: a vitalist view in which sensibility is fundamental, matching up with a conception of the organism as the sum of parts conceived as little lives (Bordeu et al.); a mechanist, or ‘enhanced mechanist’ view in which one can work upwards, step by step from the basic property of irritability to the higher-level property of sensibility (Haller); and, more eclectic, a materialist view which seeks to combine the mechanistic, componential rigour and explanatory power of the Hallerian approach, with the monistic and metaphysically explosive potential of the vitalist approach (Diderot). It is my hope that examining Diderot in the context of this triangulated topography of sensibility as property sheds light on his famous proclamation regarding sensibility as a universal property of matter.

Rousseau's Virtue Epistemology

by Ryan Patrick Hanley

The Gallican and Jansenist Roots of Jean-Frédéric Bernard and Bernard Picart’s Vision of the Inquisition

by Guillaume Calafat

Published in Lynn Hunt, Margaret Jacob et Wijnand Mijnhardt (ed.), 'Bernard Picart and The First Global Vision of Religion', Los Angeles, Getty Research Institute, 2010, p. 291-312.

This paper aims to demonstrate that the Gallican and Jansenist vision of the Catholic Inquisition influenced... more This paper aims to demonstrate that the Gallican and Jansenist vision of the Catholic Inquisition influenced Jean-Frédéric Bernard and Bernard Picart 'Cérémonies et coutumes religieuses de tous les peuples du monde'(1723-37).

Hume as a Trope Nominalist

by Jani Hakkarainen

I will give this paper at the panel on nominalism and relations in Hume Conference, Calgary, July 18-22, 2012.

Blindness and Enlightenment: An Essay: With a New Translation of Diderot's' Letter on the Blind'and La Mothe Le Vayer's' Of a Man Born Blind'

by Kate Tunstall

Voltaire's Mahomet, the Persistence of Cultural Memory and Pre-Modern Orientalism

by David Hammerbeck

Unraveling the Curtain: Subversive Folds, Cleland's Memoirs, and the Sublime in Jean-Honoré Fragonard’s Le Verrou," Rutgers Art Review 25 (2010): 43-62.

by Danielle Lenhard

Kant's Response to Hume on Geometry

by Zachary Baran

I argue that, although Kant could not have explicitly known it, he correctly predicts and forms a response to a... more I argue that, although Kant could not have explicitly known it, he correctly predicts and forms a response to a relatively understudied view in Hume’s Treatise of Human Nature, viz. that (i) certain geometric concepts are fictional and (ii) we haven’t any knowledge of the truth of (applied) geometric judgments about particulars. My aim is not so much to evaluate Kant’s response on independent grounds, as it is to motivate interpretations of Hume and Kant respectively through the lens of the other. In particular, I sketch a reading of Hume’s theory of space and time at T1.2.1-3 from which I claim it follows that Hume’s brand of mathematical fictionalism and skepticism can seem particularly compelling. Kant’s latent response is primarily formulated in the section of the first Critique entitled “The Discipline of Pure Reason in its Dogmatic Use,” where he makes the case that mathematical concepts are (uniquely) free of empirical conditions, and that this releases pure mathematics from any epistemological burden to explain its truth as a function of our actual (as opposed to possible) experience of the world of particular, concrete (and often geometrically imperfect) objects. However, I argue that Kant cannot save applied mathematics from Humean skepticism the way he can save pure mathematics from Humean fictionalism.

Why Hume Cannot Be a Realist

by Jani Hakkarainen

Revised version of the paper that I gave in Belief and Doubt in Hume conference in Prague, September 2011.

In this paper, I argue that there is a sceptical argument against the senses advanced by Hume that forms a decisive... more In this paper, I argue that there is a sceptical argument against the senses advanced by Hume that forms a decisive objection to the Metaphysically Realist interpretations of his philosophy – such as different naturalist and New Humean readings. Hume presents this argument, apparently starting with the primary/secondary qualities distinction, both in A Treatise of Human Nature, Book 1, Part 4, Section 4 (Of the modern philosophy) (1739) and An Enquiry concerning Human Understanding, Section 12 (Of the Academical or Sceptical Philosophy), paragraphs 15 to 16 (1748). The argument concludes with the contradiction between consistent reasoning (causal, in particular) and believing in the existence of Real entities. The problem with the Realist readings of Hume is that they attribute both to Hume. So their Hume is a self-reflectively inconsistent philosopher. I show that the various Realist ways to avoid this problem do not work. So this paper suggests a non-Realist interpretation of Hume's philosophy: Hume the philosopher suspends his judgment on Metaphysical Realism. As such, his philosophical attitude is neutral on the divide between materialism and idealism.

‘Un Soin que je me dois: Self-regarding Virtues in Rousseau’s Dialogues ’

by Marco Michael Di Palma

French Studies, vol. 58 (January 2004), no. 1, 15-27

The article sets itself three interconnected tasks: 1° to provide a fresh interpretation of the ethical and political... more The article sets itself three interconnected tasks: 1° to provide a fresh interpretation of the ethical and political status and meaning of Rousseau’s ‘Dialogues’, both independently and in the light of Rousseau’s other writings; 2° to offer a revisionary commentary on Jean Starobinski’s reading of the same text which it holds to be fundamentally misconceived; 3° to show how the quest for a private good in the context of Stoic and Epicurean horizons defines that work’s moral possibilities. The ‘Dialogues’ convey no aesthetic retreat from Rousseau’s earlier philosophy, as Starobinski insists, rather its vindication as an ongoing task for moral liberty. Through his principal alter ego, “Jean-Jacques”, Rousseau practices a rationally-disciplined spiritual hygienics for personal autonomy, one advanced by the cultivation of marked dispositions through the virtues appropriate to his condition. Wisdom, justice, simplicity, temperance and prudence are exercised in the pursuit of the vie simple et laborieuse by which “Jean-Jacques” services the purity of intention that wills according to the Providential order of things.

‘The Ethical Significance of the Lettres morales and Rousseau’s Philosophical Project’

by Marco Michael Di Palma

Journal of Modern Philology, vol. 100.2 (2002), 227-57

‘Rousseau’s Enlightenment Ethics: the synthesis of morals and materialism’

by Marco Michael Di Palma

Studies on Voltaire and the Eighteenth Century, vol. 5 (2000), 73-227

Rousseau’s abandoned project, La Morale sensitive, ou le matérialisme du sage, provides the point of departure for a... more Rousseau’s abandoned project, La Morale sensitive, ou le matérialisme du sage, provides the point of departure for a moral philosophy which, acknowledging in sensibility the inescapable fact of human nature, culminates in a synthesis of the natural and ethical selves.
Rousseau articulates a true Enlightenment ethics, drawing on the two sources of materialism available in sensationist psychology and the contemporary insights of physiology. Rather than a forerunner of behaviourism, the project as it is elaborated in the Lettre à d’Alembert, La Nouvelle Héloïse, Emile, Du Contrat social and elsewhere resists the reductive naturalism of the Enlightenment and its attempt to dissolve ethics into science. Instead, La Morale sensitive, ou le matérialisme du sage calls on the ethical will to make use of an instrumental reason that respects and promotes moral freedom.

Pourquoi Rosseau a-t-il critiqué la notion d'analyse? : essai sur Les Institutions chimiques de Rousseau　(japanese only)

by Masashi FUCHIDA

"Revue de philosophie Francaise", Société franco-japonaise de philosophie, tome XVI, pp.106-114, 2011.

Dans cet article, nous traitons des critiques sur la notion d'anaylyse chez les oeuvres rousseauistes. En les... more Dans cet article, nous traitons des critiques sur la notion d'anaylyse chez les oeuvres rousseauistes. En les examinant, nous arrivons à conclure que ses critiques ne viennent pas d'un caractère romantique de Rousseau, mais de sa théorie sur la chimie, qui a passionné à son époque beaucoup de philosophes comme Diderot, d'Holbach, Buffon etc. Tout après son étude sur la chimie et avoir écrit Les Institutions chimiques sont rédigés ses fameuses oeuvres politiques comme Discours sur l'inégalité et Du conrat social. Donc nous essayons ici de découvrir les relations et les ressemblances entre chimie (principe) et politique (état de nature) chez Rousseau.

Leibniz in the eighteenth century: Herder's critical reflections on the" Principles of nature and grace"

by Nigel DeSouza

The subject of this article is Herder’s unique conception of the soul-body relationship and its divergence from and... more The subject of this article is Herder’s unique conception of the soul-body relationship and its divergence from and dependence on Leibniz. Herder’s theory is premised on a rejection of the windowlessness of monads in two important respects: interaction between material bodies (as gleaned from Crusius and Kant) and interaction between the soul and body. Herder’s theory depends on Leibniz insofar as it agrees with the intimate connection Leibniz posits between the soul and the body, as his epistemology demonstrates, with, however, the significant modification that the connection is real. Herder transforms the Leibnizian rehabilitation and use of substantial forms to develop a double-conception of the human soul as both thinking substance and substantial form: the soul, qua thinking substance, needs a body through whose senses it can interact with, and acquire knowledge of, the external world; the soul, qua substantial form, constructs itself this material body by harnessing the forces of attraction and repulsion. Herder’s theory provides an alternative to other contemporary accounts of the soul-body relationship, especially Kant’s, which start from the problem of relating two distinct substances. His unique and original reconciliation of the modern dichotomy of spirit and matter, via his connecting of Leibniz’s realms of final and efficient causes, is of great significance for the rise of German Idealism.

Language, reason, and sociability: Herder's critique of Rousseau

by Nigel DeSouza

This paper seeks to explore what Herder is actually doing in his Treatise on the Origin of Language and how this fits... more This paper seeks to explore what Herder is actually doing in his Treatise on the Origin of Language and how this fits into his philosophy as a whole. Through the lens of Herder’s critique of Rousseau, the paper demonstrates how he construes the human being, in virtue of the organization of its soul-forces (Seelenkräfte) and the condition of need into which it is born, as compelled to develop itself in two related ways. First, the human being develops its capacity for reason and language from the outset, proceeding through various stages of their development: reflective awareness, inner language, and spoken language. Second, the human being also develops natural affections from the very beginning, which, in turn, ground its natural sociability. Language, reason, and sociability together form the basis of human culture and civilization and their development is governed by a set of natural laws that emerge from Herder’s metaphysics.

The Indirect Perception of Distance: Interpretive Complexities in Berkeley's Theory of Vision

by Michael J. Braund

published in Kritike (1)2, 2007, pp. 49- 64

The problem of whether perception is direct or if it depends on additional, cognitive contributions made by the... more The problem of whether perception is direct or if it depends on additional, cognitive contributions made by the perceiving subject, is posed with particular force in an Essay towards a New Theory of Vision (NTV). It is evident from the recurrent treatment it receives therein that Berkeley considers it to be one of the central issues concerning perception. Fittingly, the NTV devotes the most attention to it. In this essay, I provide a critical defence of Berkeley’s treatment of the problem of indirect distance perception, in the light of opposing theories.

Leibniz' Argument for Innate Ideas

by Byron Kaldis

Just the Arguments: 100 of the Most Important Arguments in Western Philosophy, Blackwell, 2011

Leibniz’s Arguments for the existence of petites perceptions in his Nouveaux essais sur l’entendement humain (1704 Leibniz’s Arguments for the existence of petites perceptions in his Nouveaux essais sur l’entendement humain (1704

“Moritz’ Ästhetik und der universale Metabolismus: Ein Fall ‘tragischer’ Mereologie?”

by Hans Adler

Signaturen des Denkens/Signatures of Thought: Karl Philipp Moritz. Ed. Anthony Krupp. Amsterdam: Rodopi, 195-204.

Un chroniqueur curieux de Paris et de la promenade : Edmond-Jean-François Barbier et son journal (1718-1763), French Historical Studies, 33:2, Spring 2010, p. 201-230

by Laurent Turcot

Dans son journal de 1718 à 1763, Edmond-Jean-François Barbier raconte la ville de Paris et ses événements, ordinaires... more Dans son journal de 1718 à 1763, Edmond-Jean-François Barbier raconte la ville de Paris et ses événements, ordinaires et extraordinaires. Le présent article se propose d'évaluer la manière dont l'avocat Barbier raconte la promenade et de montrer que son récit témoigne d'une transformation dans la manière de concevoir la promenade. Une pratique associée à la royauté et à la noblesse où prime la fonction de distinction sociale devient, au fil du journal de Barbier, une façon de découvrir et connaître sa ville afin de la raconter. Cette dimension permet de voir comment une source dite littéraire peut aider à comprendre la constitution des pratiques sociales, en l'occurrence la promenade et la transformation d'une ville.

The journal of Edmond-Jean-François Barbier, written from 1718 through 1763, can be considered both as a chronicle of Parisian everyday life and as a diary. This essay analyzes how Barbier narrates the promenade (stroll) and shows that his account illustrates a transformation in the way this pastime was conceived. Originally associated with the monarch and aristocracy, with civility and fashionable social ritual its dominant features, the promenade allowed practitioners to see and, most important, be seen. In his journal Barbier puts the promenade to a new purpose, using it to discover, become acquainted with, and narrate the city. In this light, the promenade creates a newly individualized and subjective relationship between the stroller and the city. This transformation of the stroller's appreciation for and perception of the city was made possible by the establishment of a new social role: the urban stroller. For Barbier, walking becomes an individual pursuit. Barbier's journal thus demonstrates how a literary source can be used to understand the transformation of social practice and of the urban landscape in eighteenth-century Paris.