Vitalizing Nature in the Enlightenment
Vitalizing Nature in the Enlightenment
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在启蒙运动中振兴自然
DOI：
10.1093/shm/hkj029
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发表时间：
2006
影响因子：
0.7
通讯作者：
M. Eddy
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
M. Eddy
在早期的现代时期，许多理论被用来讨论生命的来源，那就是区分有生命的物质和无生命的物质的“火花”，无论是神圣的还是其他的。在18世纪前夕，试图解释这一现象的两个相互竞争的学派是机械论者和生命论者。前者从莱顿的赫尔曼·波尔哈夫那里取得了领先地位，后者则追随了哈雷的乔治·恩斯特·斯塔尔受炼金术影响的作品。随着世纪的推移，数学家们慢慢地将自然牛顿化。他们的胜利进军被大卫·休谟犀利的怀疑论挡在了一边，但他们真的没有面对任何强大的敌人，直到他们被伊曼纽尔·康德的铁石心肠无情地摧毁了。在这个过程中，人们需要理解的关键术语是“法律”、“秩序”和“存在的大链条”。如今，这样的启蒙运动图景被认为过于简单化了。在过去的40年里，历史学家一直在用从社会学、人类学和文学批评领域进口的后现代墨水浸泡他们的羽毛笔。结果是一幅关于身体、精神，以及对一些人来说，灵魂的更微妙的图景。然而，正如彼得·汉斯·赖尔在《让自然充满活力》一书中指出的那样，这种方法并不能像1750年至1820年之间那样，对‘生命主义’给出一个明确的定义。他对生命论的解释兼收并蓄地运用了语言哲学、米歇尔·福柯的历史考古学和一点社会学传播学。由于生命论是一个相当多变的概念，他明智地将重点放在德国思想家，特别是作家和教师，他们后来影响了年轻的亚历山大·冯·洪堡和威廉·冯·洪堡。为了组织这本书，他使用了三个类别来描述生命论的时间进程：机制、启蒙生命主义和自然哲学。那些熟悉生命论历史著作的人会熟悉前两本书的轮廓，但会发现第二本书更独特。这本书的前几章讲述了从17世纪50年代到17世纪80年代和19世纪90年代活跃的思想家。在这里，雷尔使用了“机制”这个术语来代表那些认为身体是由物理力量驱动的人。然而，与那些试图将机制的统治推到18世纪末的历史不同，赖尔断言，在世纪中叶希波克拉底经验主义的洪流中，将“生命”简化为机械解释的做法已经消散。赖尔警告说，这导致了第二个范畴，“启蒙生命论”，这是一个概念，不能与万物有灵论坚持将重要的火花归因于灵魂。或者，启蒙
During the early modern period, many theories were used to discuss the source of life; that ‘spark’, divine or other, which differentiated animate from inanimate matter. On the eve of the eighteenth century, the two competing schools that sought to explain this phenomenon were the mechanists and the vitalists. The former took their lead from Leiden’s Hermann Boerhaave and the latter followed the alchemically influenced writings of Halle’s Georg Ernst Stahl. As the century progressed, the mathematicians slowly Newtonised nature. Their triumphant march was side-tracked by David Hume’s razor-sharp scepticism, but they really did not face any formidable foes until they were unmercifully dismantled by the iron mind of Immanuel Kant. The key terms that one needed to understand in this progression were ‘law’,‘order’and ‘the Great Chain of Being’. Nowadays such a picture of the Enlightenment is seen as being too simplistic. Over the past four decades, historians have been dipping their quills in postmodern ink imported from the realms of sociology, anthropology and literary criticism. The result has been a more nuanced picture of the body, mind and, for some, the soul. Yet, as Peter Hanns Reill suggests in Vitalizing Nature, such methods have not been able to offer a clear definition of ‘vitalism’as it existed between 1750 and 1820. His interpretation of vitalism eclectically employs the philosophy of language, Michel Foucault’s historical archaeology and a bit of sociological prosopography. Since vitalism was a rather protean concept, he sensibly focuses on German thinkers, especially authors and teachers who would go on to influence the young Alexander and Wilhelm von Humboldt. To organise the book he employs three categories to describe the chronological progression of vitalism: mechanism, Enlightenment vitalism and Naturphilosophie. Those acquainted with works on the history of vitalism will be familiar with the contours of the first two, but will find the second to be more unique.The first few chapters of the book address thinkers who were active from the 1750s to the 1780s and 1790s. Here Reill employs the term ‘mechanism’to represent the ones who believed the body was animated by physical forces. However, unlike histories that have sought to push mechanism’s reign up to the end of the eighteenth century, Reill avers that the reduction of ‘life’down to mechanical explanations dissipated under a torrent of mid-century Hippocratic empiricism. This led to a second category,‘Enlightenment vitalism’, a concept, warns Reill, which must not be confused with the animism’s insistence upon attributing the vital spark to the soul. Alternatively, Enlightenment