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'An aphorism, properly stamped and molded, has not been "deciphered" when it has simply been read; rather one has then to begin its interpretation, for which is required an art of interpretation.' -- Nietzsche, 'On the Genealogy of Morals'

biophilosophy renews vitalism? « Previous | |Next »
November 29, 2006

A quote:

Whereas the philosophy of biology renews mechanism in order to purge itself of all vitalism ('vitalism' is one of the curse words of biology...), biophilosophy renews vitalism in order to purge it of all theology (and in this sense number is vitalistic).

Vitalism has consistently distinguished itself from mechanism and positivism. The notion of life has always favoured an idea of becoming over one of being, of movement over stasis, of action over structure, of flow and flux.'Life, in this sense, can be understood in its opposition to mechanism. According to Scott Lasch:
One could trace this opposition, and that between ‘being’ and ‘becoming’ back to that between Heraclitus’s metaphysics of flux and Plato’s predominance of form. There are dimensions of vitalism also in Plato, as there are in that are seen as the most ‘mechanistic’ of thinkers such as Descartes or Kant or say the late Emile Durkheim. There are especially important elements of vitalism in Aristotle. The primary distinction between mechanism and vitalism may be in terms of vitalism’s self-organization. In mechanism, causation is external: the paths or movement or configuration of beings is determined. In vitalism causation is largely self-causation. And beings are largely indeterminate.

He adds that:

power is always for vitalists (from Spinoza) a question of potentia (puissance) and potestas (pouvoir). Puissance is power to and pouvoir is power over. ‘Sensory’ vitalists like Bergson and Deleuze are theorists of puissance, while the more ‘agonistic’ tendency in vitalism focus on pouvoir. In Nietzsche, puissance is life itself. It is energy: a sort of self-generating life-force. But puissance and pouvoir are closely intertwined. Nietzsche’s will to power is puissance.

| Posted by Gary Sauer-Thompson at 9:27 PM | | Comments (1)
Comments

Comments

This distinction between puissance and pouvoir is Deleuzean. Is this substantive distinction maintained in non-philosophical French?

Deleuze uses this distinction as a way of tracking the distinction between Spinoza's potentia (the essence of God, which is expressed immediately in all modes) and potestas (the relations of power between modes). Deleuze thinks it is important to use this Spinozistic distinction in order to fit Nietzsche's "will to power" (puissance) and Foucault's "power/knowledge" (pouvoir/savoir) into a coherent, systematic framework -- however "rhizomatic" or "volcanic" that systematic framework ends up looking.

The consensus among scientists is that Watson and Crick put the last nail in the coffin of vitalism by showing how to account for replication in purely mechanistic terms, i.e. the transcription from DNA to RNA and the translation from RNA to protein. I'd be very interested to see how contemporary vitalists propose to revitalize (ha, ha) vitalism in light of molecular biology.

Mind you, I do think it can be done, and that it's worth doing -- I just want to see more about what's been done already.