d&D: duplo Dilema du Bois-Reymond e Driesch, ou a vitalidade do vitalismo

Abstract

The subject of the present research are the ideas on the status of living matter among the researchers on the Life Sciences in 19th century Germany. To do so, two particular instances of discontinuity were chosen as the focus of the study, represented by two particular scientists. The first moment, represented by Emil Heinrich du Bois-Reymond (1819- 1896) is located at about the half of the century and corresponds to the refutation of the theories that invoked sui generis vital forces for the explanation of the phenomena presented by the living beings ( vitalism ). This development would have been achieved through the introduction of the notions and methods of the sciences of lifeless matter into Physiology, more specifically, the criticism of the notion of force, the formulation of the law of the conservation of force (energy) and the mathematical logic of the function, together with its expression through curves ( graphical method ). However, the application of these notions and methods into the field of Experimental Embriology, incipient at the end of the century, would lead Hans Eduard Adolf Driesch (1867-1941) to postulate some kind of sui generis agent, peculiar to the living beings. Thus, at the turn of the century, vitalism returned to the center of the stage of the Life Sciences, as neovitalism