Session: Holism and organicism: conceptual consensus or historical typologies? (Georg Toepfer, Matteo Mossio, Charles Wolfe, Tobias Cheung)

Cabanisʼs Rapports du physique et du moral de l'homme (1802) was a treatise on the systemic relations between, first, organic units, second, organs and intellectual operations, and, third, the entire organized body and its outer world. Within this conceptual framework, I will focus on the role of “reaction centersˮ (centres de réaction) and the order of their interactions. For Cabanis, there were multiple “reaction centersˮ within one “living systemˮ, like organs or nerve nets. Through stimuli-reaction-schemes, “reaction centersˮ interacted with each other and with the regions or worlds that surrounded them. “Living systemsˮ thus maintained their inner order through complex interactions between different inner and outer inside-outside-interfaces. Further on, “reaction centersˮ were agents within processual hierarchies that determine the influence of each “centerˮ. Finally, the acts of “reaction centersˮ did not only maintain and reproduce the “living systemsˮ in which they occur, but also modify their inner organization.