Materialism,
Lebenskraft
and the limits of science: metaphysical vitalism in post-Kantian scenarios
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Published:2023-02-15
Issue:4
Volume:77
Page:771-787
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ISSN:0035-9149
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Container-title:Notes and Records: the Royal Society Journal of the History of Science
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language:en
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Short-container-title:Notes Rec.
Affiliation:
1. University of Roma Tre, Department of Philosophy, Communication and Performing Arts, Via Ostiense, 234-236 – 00146 Rome, Italy
Abstract
Kant's legacy in the history of life sciences has notoriously included a critique of the use of soul and ‘vital force’ (
Lebenskraft
). In this paper I focus on a less-known side of this legacy, i.e. Kant's late critique of vital materialism and its impact on nineteenth-century German science and philosophy. I show that Kant considered materialism as a kind of metaphysical hypothesis since the 1760s and pointed out that it was empirically impossible to distinguish it from different kinds of hypotheses (such as monadology). I focus on Kant's late essay on Samuel Sömmering (1796), arguing that the critical rejection of materialism and the notion of
Lebenskraft
belonged to an anti-reductive program for life sciences. I maintain that Kant's views influenced Alexander von Humboldt's turn concerning vitalism in the late 1790s and the anti-metaphysical and physicalist epistemology of Hermann von Helmholtz. I follow this Kantian legacy in the works of Friedrich Lange, Emil du Bois-Reymond and Erich Adickes. Finally, I argue that this tradition provides a vantage point to reconsider contemporary debates over materialism and panpsychism.
Publisher
The Royal Society
Subject
History and Philosophy of Science