Vitalizing nature in the Enlightenment [[electronic resource] /] / Peter Hanns Reill

• Autore: Reill Peter Hanns
• Pubblicazione: Berkeley, : University of California Press, c2005
• Descrizione fisica: 1 online resource (402 p.)
• Disciplina: 509/.4/09033
• Soggetto topico: Vitalism; Science - History - 18th century
• Soggetto non controllato: 18th century; animism; charles louis dumas; chemistry; counter enlightenment; cuvier; early modern enlightenment; enlightenment; epigenesis; generation; history of science; history; life force; life science; mechanism; modernity; natural history; natural philosophy; natural world; nature; naturphilosophie; philosophy; physiology; reason; relationship with nature; religion and science; reproduction; romanticism; science; scientific disciplines; spark of life; stahlian chemistry; vitalism; william cullen
• Classificazione: TB 2360
• Note generali: Description based upon print version of record.
• Nota di bibliografia: Includes bibliographical references and index.
• Nota di contenuto: Front matter -- Contents -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction -- Prologue: The Humboldt Brothers Confront Nature's Sublimity -- I. Storming "the Temple of Error": Buffon, the Histoire naturelle, and the Midcentury Origins of Enlightenment Vitalism -- 2. Learning to "Read the Book of Nature": Vitalizing Chemistry in the Late Enlightenment -- 3. "Within the Circle of Organized Life" -- 4. The Metamorphoses of Change -- 5. From Enlightenment Vitalism to Romantic Naturphilosophie -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Index
• Sommario/riassunto: This far-reaching study redraws the intellectual map of the Enlightenment and boldly reassesses the legacy of that highly influential period for us today. Peter Hanns Reill argues that in the middle of the eighteenth century, a major shift occurred in the way Enlightenment thinkers conceived of nature that caused many of them to reject the prevailing doctrine of mechanism and turn to a vitalistic model to account for phenomena in natural history, the life sciences, and chemistry. As he traces the ramifications of this new way of thinking through time and across disciplines, Reill provocatively complicates our understanding of the way key Enlightenment thinkers viewed nature. His sophisticated analysis ultimately questions postmodern narratives that have assumed a monolithic Enlightenment-characterized by the dominance of instrumental reason-that has led to many of the disasters of modern life.
• Titolo autorizzato: Vitalizing nature in the Enlightenment
• ISBN: 9786612357497; 0-520-93100-9; 1-282-35749-2; 1-59875-547-1
• Formato: Materiale a stampa
• Livello bibliografico: Monografia
• Lingua di pubblicazione: Inglese
• Record Nr.: 9910783316003321
• Lo trovi qui: Univ. Federico II