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Cabanis, Pierre-Jean (1757–1808)

DOI
10.4324/9780415249126-DB013-1
DOI: 10.4324/9780415249126-DB013-1
Version: v1,  Published online: 1998
Retrieved March 28, 2024, from https://www.rep.routledge.com/articles/biographical/cabanis-pierre-jean-1757-1808/v-1

Article Summary

Cabanis believed in the possibility of a ‘science of man’, having its basis in medicine. He tried to show how a materialist conception of the human organism can throw light on our mental and moral life. The properties of living matter were derived from physical laws, but had their own peculiarities. In particular, the property of sensibility (being able to have sensations) and the property of motility (involving the experience of effort and of resistance to it) were the keys to understanding human nature.

Though the thrust of Cabanis’ thought is materialistic, his emphasis on medical science distinguishes him both from the mechanistic tradition as represented by La Mettrie, and from the intellectualist tradition represented by Condillac, in which sensations are taken as given mental items, from which the rest of our mental life is constructed by operations of reasoning or association.

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Citing this article:
Moore, F.C.T.. Cabanis, Pierre-Jean (1757–1808), 1998, doi:10.4324/9780415249126-DB013-1. Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Taylor and Francis, https://www.rep.routledge.com/articles/biographical/cabanis-pierre-jean-1757-1808/v-1.
Copyright © 1998-2024 Routledge.

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