Fiche du document
1992
Copyright PERSEE 2003-2023. Works reproduced on the PERSEE website are protected by the general rules of the Code of Intellectual Property. For strictly private, scientific or teaching purposes excluding all commercial use, reproduction and communication to the public of this document is permitted on condition that its origin and copyright are clearly mentionned.
Sujets proches
Supraliminal perceptionCiter ce document
Annie Ibrahim, « Matière inerte et matière vivante. La théorie de la perception chez Maupertuis », Dix-Huitième Siècle, ID : 10.3406/dhs.1992.1856
Métriques
Partage / Export
Résumé
Inert and living matter. Maupertuis'S theory of Perception. Starting from an "open", inquiry into the idea of matter, Maupertuis proposes a theory of the generation and reproduction of living bodies on the model of perception. Maupertuis borrows Leibniz's theory of monadic perception and like him accords perception and appetite to animals and plants. Hence, Maupertuis claims that the smallest living particles possess elementary perception. He can thus show that a sort of memory of its former state leads the particle to the place where it can play its appropriate role in the make-up of the future organism, and he can establish the relation between the elementary particles and the whole organism. The role of contingency allows him to explain both the way the particles join together according to their chosen affinities and also the failures of this teleology, such as monsters or albinos.