Vegetative Powers: The Roots of Life in Ancient, Medieval and Early Modern Natural Philosophy

Description

Acknowledgments Contents About the Authors Chapter 1: Missing a Soul That Endows Bodies with Life: An Introduction References Chapter 2: Soul, Parts of the Soul, and the Definition of the Vegetative Capacity in Aristotle’s De anima 2.1 What Is the Soul for Aristotle? 2.2 What Is a Part of the Soul? 2.3 The Vegetative Part of the Soul References Chapter 3: Embodied Intelligent (?) Souls: Plants in Plato’s Timaeus 3.1 The Limits of Degenerative Creation 3.2 The Puzzle Arising: Must Sensation Imply Intelligence? 3.3 Option 3: Equivocation 3.4 Option 2: Minimisation 3.5 Option 1: Biting the Bullet 3.6 A Suggested Solution References Chapter 4: The Vegetative Soul in Galen 4.1 Introduction 4.2 Galen’s Tripartition of the Soul 4.3 Galen’s Adaptation of the Desiderative Soul 4.4 The Desiderative Soul as the Soul of Plants 4.5 The Human Being as a Plant 4.6 The Creative Power of the Vegetative Soul? References Chapter 5: Avicenna on Vegetative Faculties and the Life of Plants 5.1 Arguments for Enumeration and Distinction of the Vegetative Faculties 5.2 Plants and Souls 5.3 The Ennobling of the Vegetative by Higher Faculties 5.4 Metaphysical and Temporal Priority Among Faculties 5.5 The Dividing Line: Plant-Like Animals and Voluntary Motion 5.6 Reproduction in Avicenna’s General Biological Works 5.7 Avicenna’s Book of Plants and the Concept of Life References Chapter 6: Can Plants Desire? Aspects of the Debate on desiderium naturale 6.1 The Pseudo-Aristotelian De plantis on Desire in Plants and the Perspective of Ancient Sources 6.2 Plotinus and the Contemplation of Plants 6.3 Isaac Israeli on the Sensus Naturalis 6.4 Averroes’ Long Commentary on Aristotle’s Physics 6.5 Plants’ Desire by Roger Bacon 6.6 Albert the Great’s Summary of the Question 6.7 Concluding Remarks References Chapter 7: Disclosing the Hidden Life of Plants. Theories of the Vegetative Soul in Albert the Great’s De vegetabilibus et plantis 7.1 A Simple Soul in a Simple Body 7.1.1 Theories of Plant Perception 7.1.2 Do Plants Sleep? 7.1.3 Male and Female Plants? 7.2 Disclosing the Physiology of Plants 7.2.1 Plant Development 7.2.2 Roots and Marrow 7.2.3 Nutrition and Death: The Role of Pores 7.3 Before and After Albert’s De vegetabilibus: Alfred of Sareshel and Peter of Auvergne 7.4 A Botany Not for Science’s Sake 7.5 Conclusion References Chapter 8: On the Natural Generation of Human Beings: The Vegetative Power in a Thought Experiment by Some Masters of Arts (1250-c. 1268) 8.1 Historical and Theoretical Context 8.2 The Thought Experiment of the Progenitum A. Examination of the Texts 8.2.1 The Shorter Version of the Experiment: John de Sècheville, De Principiis Naturae 8.2.2 The Earliest Version of the Experiment: Quaestiones super Librum de Anima, q. 60 8.2.3 The Last Version of the Experiment: Ps.-Petrus Guentin de Ortemberg, Quaestiones super Physicam II, 1 8.3 Concluding Remarks References Chapter 9: Thomas Aquinas on the Vegetative Soul 9.1 Introduction 9.2 Why Is There a Need for a Vegetative Soul? 9.3 The Functions of the Vegetative Soul 9.4 The Vegetative Powers in Human Beings 9.5 Conclusion References Chapter 10: The Vegetative Powers of Human Beings: Late Medieval Metaphysical Worries 10.1 Introduction 10.2 Where Should the Vegetative Powers Be Placed in Human Beings? 10.2.1 The Soul as Distinct from Its Powers 10.2.2 Soul(s) and Powers: Identical Yet Distinct 10.3 The Metaphysics of Generation, Nutrition, and Growth 10.3.1 How to Produce a Human Being? 10.3.2 How Is Food Digested? 10.4 Conclusion References Chapter 11: The Jesuit Cultivation of Vegetative Souls: Leonard Lessius (1554–1623) on a Sober Diet 11.1 Introduction 11.2 Jesuits and Galenism 11.3 The Hygiasticon 11.4 The Characteristics of Diet 11.5 The Virtue of Nutrition as a Foundation for Rational and Spiritual Functions 11.6 Luigi Cornaro’s Idea of Diet and Temperance 11.7 Conclusion References Chapter 12: Nicolaus Taurellus on Vegetative Powers and the Question of Substance Monism 12.1 Introduction 12.2 Vegetative Powers and the Problem of Substance Monism 12.3 Elements and the Question of Substantiality 12.4 Vegetative Powers and the Emergence of Substantial Forms 12.5 Vegetative Powers and Substance Pluralism 12.6 Conclusion References Chapter 13: Vegetal Analogy in Early Modern Medicine: Generation as Plant Cutting in Sennert’s Early Treatises (1611–1619) 13.1 Introduction 13.2 The Transmission of the Soul During Generation 13.3 Multiplication of Forms and Horticulture 13.4 Forms, Seeds, and “Stars”: A Paracelsian Reconnection 13.5 Conclusion References Chapter 14: Vegetative and Sensitive Functions of the Soul in Descartes’s Meditations 14.1 Introduction 14.2 The Pre-philosophical Notion of Man 14.3 Abstraction and Functions of the Soul 14.4 What Is “Necessarily True” 14.5 Conclusion References Chapter 15: Failures of Mechanization: Vegetative Powers and the Early Cartesians, Regius, La Forge, and Schuyl 15.1 Nutrition, Digestion and Growth in L’Homme 15.2 Descartes’ Vegetative Power as Immutatio 15.3 Three Steps beyond Descartes: Regius’ Vegetative Power 15.4 Two Problems Within Descartes: La Forge’s Remarks 15.5 Florent Schuyl: Plants and Vegetative Activities in De Homine (1662) 15.6 Concluding Remarks References Chapter 16: Marin Cureau de la Chambre on the Vegetative Powers 16.1 Introduction 16.2 On That Secret and Hidden Cognition: Instincts 16.3 The Nature of Vegetative Cognition 16.4 The Shadow of Cognition in the Inanimate World 16.5 Conclusion References Chapter 17: Re-inventing the Vegetable Soul? More’s Spirit of Nature and Cudworth’s Plastic Nature Reconsidered 17.1 Context: The Challenge of Mechanism 17.2 Two Hypotheses 17.3 The Plant Life of Nature 17.4 Sources 17.4.1 Sources: More 17.4.2 Sources: Cudworth 17.5 Conclusion References Chapter 18: Margaret Cavendish and Vegetable Life 18.1 Introduction 18.2 Galenic Matter and Knowledge 18.3 William Harvey and Vegetable Rationality 18.4 Redefining Plant Life 18.5 Generation and Growth 18.6 Perception and Patterning 18.7 Conclusion References Chapter 19: Plantanimal Imagination: Life and Perception in Early Modern Discussions of Vegetative Power 19.1 A Plant’s-Eye View of the Universe: Plotinus and Ficino 19.2 The Inner Touch of the Vegetative Soul: Galen and Cesalpino 19.3 Perception as the Pulse of Undifferentiated Matter: Harvey 19.4 The Vegetative Imagination of the Earth: Kepler 19.5 Conclusion References Chapter 20: “Vegetative Epistemology”: Francis Glisson on the Self-Referential Nature of Life 20.1 Perceptions and Vegetative Life 20.2 Arnauld and Glisson on Self-Referentiality 20.3 Glisson on Sensory Awareness 20.4 Conclusion References Chapter 21: Life in the Dark: Corals, Sponges, and Gravitation in Late Seventeenth Natural Philosophy 21.1 Introduction 21.2 Nehemiah Grew’s Natural History 21.3 Nehemiah Grew’s Physico-Theology 21.4 Life Is Everywhere… and Nowhere? 21.5 A Brief Comparison with John Ray and Ralph Cudworth 21.6 Conclusion References Chapter 22: Vegetable Life: Applications, Implications, and Transformations of a Classical Concept (1500–1700) 22.1 Vegetable Analogies 22.2 Vegetal Anatomies 22.3 The Vegetable in Generation and Reproduction 22.4 Vegetative Soul and Sexual Drive 22.5 Vegetable Machines 22.6 Vegetable and Animal Together: Organisms 22.7 “The Plant-Man” References Chapter 23: The Notion of Vegetative Soul in the Leibniz-Stahl Controversy 23.1 Stahl’s Critical Stance About the Vegetative Soul 23.2 Leibniz’s Interpretation of the Vegetative Soul 23.3 Conclusion References Chapter 24: Vegetation and Life from Wolff to Hanov 24.1 The Mechanical Life of Plants 24.2 Biology and the System of Sciences 24.3 Organic Bodies 24.4 Vegetative Force and Vegetative Soul 24.5 Natural Instinct and Biological Laws References Chapter 25: Bichatʼs Two Lives 25.1 The Difference of Two Lives, or How One Life Becomes Two Lives 25.2 Forms of Interaction, or How Two Lives Become One Life 25.3 Concluding Remarks References