Worlds Conflicting

2017 ◽  
Vol 47 (5) ◽  
pp. 629-652 ◽  
Author(s):  
Florence Vienne
Keyword(s):  
Scientific Work ◽  
Historical Narrative ◽  
Cell Theory ◽  
Biological Organization ◽  
Political Beliefs ◽  
Political Ideas ◽  
Revolutionary Politics ◽  
Nineteenth Century France ◽  
Role Of Religion

François-Vincent Raspail (1794–1878) and Theodor Schwann (1810–1882) postulated—in 1827 and 1838, respectively—that plants and animals consist of, and originate from, cells. Whereas Raspail is mainly remembered for his involvement in the revolutions of 1830 and 1848, little is known about his scientific work. Schwann, by contrast, is regarded as one of the founders of cell theory, but historians of biology have hardly taken his philosophical, religious, and political ideas into account. Paying particular attention to Schwann’s unpublished writings, this paper reconstructs the research agendas of Raspail and Schwann, and contrasts the philosophical and political beliefs and incentives behind them. Whereas Raspail was a proponent of republicanism and materialism, Schwann opposed the modernist agenda of explaining nature and humankind without God, as well a democratic reshaping of society. Contrary to the prevailing historical narrative, this paper argues that cell theory did not emerge exclusively in conjunction with the rise of liberalism and materialism. Rather, the idea of a unifying principle of organic development encompassed different and even antagonistic visions of nature, humankind, society, and the role of religion in science. This essay is part of a special issue entitled REVOLUTIONARY POLITICS AND BIOLOGICAL ORGANIZATION IN NINETEENTH-CENTURY FRANCE AND GERMANY edited by Lynn K. Nyhart and Florence Vienne.

Biological and Social New Orders

2017 ◽  
Vol 47 (5) ◽  
pp. 653-677
Author(s):  
Marion Thomas
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Third Republic ◽  
Political Activity ◽  
Parallel Structure ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
Biological Organization ◽  
Political Ideas ◽  
Politics And Religion ◽  
Revolutionary Politics ◽  
Nineteenth Century France

In this paper, I examine the intertwined science, politics, and religion of a major figure of nineteenth-century French biology, the Parisian professor of histology Charles Robin (1821–1885). Historiography generally associates his name with France’s rejection of the cell theory formulated by Schwann and then Virchow in the 1830s–1850s. One of the main factors put forward is the influence of Comtean positivism. Here, I propose to go beyond this historiography and discuss not only convergences but also divergences between Robin’s and Comte’s visions of the organism and society. Moreover, I analyze Robin’s research agenda in light of the political ideas he defended as a republican in the context of the emergence of the Third Republic. At first sight, Robin’s political activity (marked by his late tenure as senator) may initially appear disconnected from his scientific agenda. However, I argue that Robin’s approaches to different areas of knowledge (biology, sociology, politics, and metaphysics) were mutually supportive and lent one another authority, especially through the parallel structure and shared vocabulary of their discourses. Ultimately, I demonstrate that Robin’s biological materialism, combined with his outspoken anticlericalism, constitutes a political stance, and show how the concept of “solidarity” helped him to cast a new light on the relations between the parts and the whole, both in biology and social policy. This essay is part of a special issue entitled REVOLUTIONARY POLITICS AND BIOLOGICAL ORGANIZATION IN NINETEENTH-CENTURY FRANCE AND GERMANY edited by Lynn K. Nyhart and Florence Vienne.

New wine in old bottles? Ancien Régime schools imagine the future

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Adrian O'Connor
Keyword(s):  
Educational Reform ◽  
Educational Institutions ◽  
Ancien Regime ◽  
The Public ◽  
New Politics ◽  
Revolutionary Politics ◽  
Ancien Régime ◽  
Public Instruction ◽  
Role Of Religion

While the Assembly and the public debated the possible reform of education, the administrators, instructors, students, and others affiliated with the schools were left navigating uncertain political, social, and institutional terrain. They too participated in the wide-ranging debate over educational reform discussed in the preceding chapters, proposing their own answers to questions about whether the educational institutions inherited from the Ancien Régime could be integrated into the new society and new politics, whether they could be turned into instruments of “public instruction.” This chapter examines local attempts to accommodate and realize the new politics in and through education by analyzing letters, proposals, memoranda, requests, and programs for reform generated by or for universities, collèges, petites écoles, and other educational institutions during the years of the constitutional monarchy. These sources reveal institutions and individuals trying to anticipate, accommodate, and influence the course of revolutionary politics, show mounting frustrations as the delayed promise of educational reform and as controversies over the role of religion in politics complicated the process of actually running schools, and remind us of the entanglement of practical, political, and ideological imperatives that characterized the work of revolution.

The Political Organism

2017 ◽  
Vol 47 (5) ◽  
pp. 602-628 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lynn K. Nyhart
Keyword(s):  
The State ◽  
Political Organization ◽  
The Political ◽  
Discourse Communities ◽  
New Wave ◽  
Biological Organization ◽  
Revolutionary Era ◽  
Revolutionary Politics ◽  
Nineteenth Century France ◽  
State Organization

How do the discourses of biology and politics interact? This article uses the case of Carl Vogt (1817–1895), the notorious German “radical materialist” zoologist and political revolutionary, to analyze the traffic across these discourses before, during, and after the revolutions of 1848. Arguing that metaphors of the organism and the state did different work in the discourse communities of German political theorists and biologists through the 1840s, it then traces Vogt’s life and work to show how politics and biology came together in his biography. It draws on Vogt’s political rhetoric, his satirical post-1849 writings, and his scientific studies to examine the parallels he drew between animal organization and human social and political organization in the 1840s and ’50s. Broadening back out, I suggest that the discourses of organismal and state organization, both somewhat transformed, would align more closely over the 1850s and thereafter—yet asymmetrically. Although the state metaphor became more attractive for biologists, the organism as state did not harden into a dominant concept in biology. On the political side, a new wave of political theorizing increasingly viewed the state as resembling a biological organism. These shifts, I speculate, brought the discourses closer together in the post-revolutionary era, and may be seen as contributing to a new configuration of mutual legitimation between science and the state. This essay is part of a special issue entitled REVOLUTIONARY POLITICS AND BIOLOGICAL ORGANIZATION IN NINETEENTH-CENTURY FRANCE AND GERMANY edited by Lynn K. Nyhart and Florence Vienne.

The Role of Religion in Establishing Peaceful Coexistence in Society

2018 ◽  
Vol 08 (02) ◽  
pp. 163-182
Author(s):  
Muhammad Zaman Nazi ◽  
◽  
Farman Ali ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Peaceful Coexistence ◽  
Role Of Religion

Ivan Ozhienko about the role of religion in Ukrainian national life

2001 ◽  
pp. 54-61
Author(s):  
K. Nedzelsky
Keyword(s):  
Ethnic Identity ◽  
Spiritual Life ◽  
Human Soul ◽  
National Unity ◽  
Terrestrial Life ◽  
Dedicated Service ◽  
National Life ◽  
Role Of Religion ◽  
Spiritual Unity

Ivan Ogienko (1882-1972), also known as Metropolitan Hilarion, devoted much attention to the role and place of religion in the national life of Ukrainians and their ethnic identity in their scholarly and theological works. Without exaggeration it can be argued that the problem of national unity of the Ukrainian people is one of the key principles of all historiosophical considerations of the famous scholar and theologian. If the purpose of the spiritual life of a Ukrainian, according to his views, is to serve God, then the purpose of state or terrestrial life is the dedicated service to his people. The purpose of heaven and the purpose of the earthly paths, intersecting in the life of a certain group of people through the lives of its individual representatives, give rise to a unique alliance of spiritual unity, the name of which is "people" or "nation." Religion (faith) in the process of transforming the anarchist crowd into a spiritually integrated and orderly national integrity serves as the transformer of the imperfect nature of the human soul into perfect.

The essence and causes of the spiritual and moral decline of mankind in the XX century

1998 ◽  
pp. 124-127
Author(s):  
V. Tolkachenko
Keyword(s):  
Well Being ◽  
Religious Institutions ◽  
Social Force ◽  
The World ◽  
Role Of Religion

One of the most important reasons for such a clearly distressed state of society was the decline of religion as a social force, the external manifestation of which is the weakening of religious institutions. "Religion," Baha'u'llah writes, "is the greatest of all means of establishing order in the world to the universal satisfaction of those who live in it." The weakening of the foundations of religion strengthened the ranks of ignoramuses, gave them impudence and arrogance. "I truly say that everything that belittles the supreme role of religion opens way for the revelry of maliciousness, inevitably leading to anarchy. " In another Tablet, He says: "Religion is a radiant light and an impregnable fortress that ensures the safety and well-being of the peoples of the world, for God-fearing induces man to adhere to the good and to reject all evil." Blink the light of religion, and chaos and distemper will set in, the radiance of justice, justice, tranquility and peace. "

The problem of periodization of the history of religion

1997 ◽  
pp. 3-8
Author(s):  
Borys Lobovyk
Keyword(s):  
Religious Studies ◽  
Human Being ◽  
Religious Development ◽  
History Of Religion ◽  
The Social ◽  
The World ◽  
History Of ◽  
Role Of Religion

An important problem of religious studies, the history of religion as a branch of knowledge is the periodization process of the development of religious phenomenon. It is precisely here, as in focus, that the question of the essence and meaning of the religious development of the human being of the world, the origin of beliefs and cult, the reasons for the changes in them, the place and role of religion in the social and spiritual process, etc., are converging.

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