Jean-Baptiste Lamarck and the Place of Irritability in the History of Life and Death
نویسنده
چکیده
S. Normandin and C.T. Wolfe (eds.), Vitalism and the Scientifi c Image in Post-Enlightenment Life Science, 1800–2010, History, Philosophy and Theory of the Life Sciences 2, DOI 10.1007/978-94-007-2445-7_2, © Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2013 Abstract In the history of philosophy and science, vitalism has a bad reputation, for the very defi nition of life remains remorselessly murky. And yet life also resists all attempts at reduction carried out by the logic of mechanical reason. While on a superfi cial level, life smacks of irrational exuberance, on a deeper level, it is in the very uncomfortable company of death. In this chapter, I argue that this ambivalence is particularly evident in Jean-Baptiste Lamarck’s natural philosophy. In his chemical, geological, botanical and zoological views, Lamarck advocated a theory of decaying rather than living matter. He characterized orgasm, irritability and sensibility – the forms which life takes on in the physical universe – as momentary interruptions of nature’s ordinary course toward death and destruction. This chapter examines Lamarck’s notion of irritability, paying special attention to his concept of “intussusception.” By intussusception, Lamarck meant a universal mechanism of Chapter 2 Jean-Baptiste Lamarck and the Place of Irritability in the History of Life and Death
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