SchubertSoldern Mechanism and Vitalism:
11/26/07: Rainer Schubert-Soldern, Mechanism and Vitalism, trans. by C.E. Robin, ed. by Phillip G. Fothergill (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame, 1962),
Vitalism takes the view that within living beings, a radically different principle is operative. In Vitalism, matter is shaped and directed by a life principle. So then, unaided matter could not by itself give rise to life, according to the Vitalist. The Vitalist, then, considers that something immaterial lives in and through matter. Aristotle is rightly regarded as the father of all Vitalistic theories, whereas Democritus is the father of all Mechanistic theories. It is from Aristotle that Vitalism gains a conception of an active and immaterial factor inherent within matter.
• I need to get this book again for its import to Biology and Teleology, note.