La théorie de l'âme dans la pensée médicale vers 1778

Paul Hoffmann : The theory of the soul in medical thought around 1778. The Nouveaux éléments de la science de l'homme, published in 1778 by Joseph Barthez, represent the problems facing anthropologists in the 18th Century, caught between mechanism and animism. Barthez sought a new objective scientific language, but continued to use the term "vital principle" to denote the specific nature of living beings and to mark his distance from materialistic physiology. His vital principle, which was simply a working concept, was difficult to reconcile with the soul ; the ensuing difficulties could only be solved by a vitalism which he attempted to avoid but which was the only possible refutation of mechanism. The probfems encountered by Barthez and the ambiguity of his theory of the soul are therefore exemplary.Hoffmann Paul. La théorie de l'âme dans la pensée médicale vers 1778. In: Dix-huitième Siècle, n°11, 1979. L'année 1778. pp. 201-212