Modelli e metafore del vivente tra i secoli XVII e XVIII. I sistemi della natura, dai Cartesiani a Barthez

Models and Metaphors of the Living between 17th and 18th Centuries. The Systems of Nature, from Cartesians to Barthez Abstract: From the second half of the 17th century onward, the failure of Cartesian models of preexistence and mechanics paved the way for a new form of animism/vitalism (Stahl) that unintentionally approached materialism. Spinoza’s philosophy of the “Little Physics” (Ethics, II, 13) and the energetics proposed by heterodox readings of Spinoza introduced a materialist solution, at once, to the problems of generation, development, and the nature of life. Matter is endowed with strength, sensitivity, and activity, enabling it to form increasingly complex architectures and structures through the dynamic aggregation of simple particles and elementary atoms constituting life’s fundamental building blocks. The notion of a “system” of nature is a common feature of various authors, first and foremost the encyclopedic vitalists of the Montpellier School, who express this vision and model of the living cosmos and assert the ontological and foundational autonomy of the sphere of the natural vis-à-vis all other spheres of reality.