Vital Forces, Teleology and Organization

Introduction.- I. Generation.- 1. At the Origin of German Vitalism: the Haller-Wolff Debate.- 2. Vital Force and Epigenesis: Wolff's Theory of Generation.- 2.1. Discarding the Invisibility Argument.- 2.2. The Progressive Organization of Parts.- 3. Goal-Directed Organization: Wolff and Blumenbach on Teleology.- 3.1. Wolff''s Vital-Materialism.- 3.2. Realist-Teleological Vitalism: Blumenbach and the Bildungstrieb.- 4. Understanding Purpose: Kant as a Vitalist.- 4.1. Organized Beings and Machines: Kant on the Formative Force.- 4.2. Kant's Regulative Vitalism.- 5. Chemical Vitalism: Reil on the Vital Force.- 5.1. Vital Force as Result of Organization.- 5.2. Reil's Nomological Vitalism.- 6. Concluding Remarks .- II. Functions.- 1. The Göttingen School as Historical Category.- 2. Building Blocks of the Göttingen School: Haller on Vital Properties.- 2.1. Irritability and Sensibility: First Outline of Vitalist Physiology.- 2.2. "Vis Insita": Correlating Structure and Function.- 3. Foundationsof the Göttingen School: Vital Forces in Blumenbach's Physiology.- 3.1. Fluid and Solid Parts of the Living Body.- 3.2. Extending the Hallerian Model.- 3.3. Force and Function.- 4. Core of the Gottingen School: Kielmeyer's Lecture as Program for a General Biology.- 5. Explanatory Framework of the Göttingen School: Link's Deflationist Approach.- 6. Concluding Remarks.- III. Classification.- 1. Classificatory Frameworks in the Late-Eighteenth Century.- 2. Blumenbach on Natural History.- 3. The "Kantian Principle" for Natural History.- 3.1. A New Principle?.- 3.2. Ideas so Monstrous that Reason Recoils Before Them: Kant on Transformism.- 3.3. Phyletic Origin: Kant and Girtanner on Archetypes.- 4. The Unity of Plan in Goethe's Morphology.- 4.1. Metamorphosis as Idealized Epigenesis: Goethe's Relation to Wolff and Blumenbach.- 4.2. Archetype and Compensation: Goethe's Relation to Kielmeyer.- 5. "Vital-Materialism" and Naturphilosophie.- 5.1. "A New Epoch of Natural History": Schelling's

Andrea Gambarotto obtained his PhD in a co-tutored program between the Scuola Normale Superiore (Florence) and the Institut d'historie et de philosophie des sciences et des techniques (Paris). His main areas of expertise are classical German philosophy, philosophy of nature and philosophy of biology. He has published papers especially on German Idealism and on the history of German life-sciences between 18th and 19th century. He is the editor of a volume in history and philosophy of biology dedicated to the notion of organism.

"Gambarotto's main point about the continuity between the investigations of the practicing life scientists and the Naturphilosophen in the late eighteenth century is quite convincing, and the discussion of the specific convergences of their investigations substantially con-tributes to our understanding of the emergence of biology during that period." (Anton Kabeshkin, Philosophy in Review, Vol. 39 (2), May, 2019)