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Vitalism and mechanism

Vitalism holds that living things are governed by a special force or principle not found in lifeless matter. Mechanism holds that vital phenomena reduce to the same physical and chemical factors as all others. Verworn set out the question in 18991. It matters because the problem of guidance and purpose in organisms returns in later authors49.

Earliest held
1888, Binet, A.
Most discussed in
General Physiology: An Outline of the Science…, 1899
In the library
1,090 passages in 70 works
Rewritten
2026-10-03
18501875190019251950197520002025Verworn, M., 18991Verworn, M., 18992Bose, J. C., 19023Driesch, H., 19084Child, C. M., 19155Loeb, J., 19166Lotka, A. J., 19257Bernard, C., 19578Pio-Lopez L, Kuchling F, Tung A…, 20229
01

Framing the question

Verworn, in General Physiology (1899), framed the issue. The properties of lifeless bodies derive from atoms endowed with energy, so the question is whether living phenomena reduce to the same factors. Vitalism answers no and posits a vital force limited to living matter1. Verworn also described a mechanical vitalism, in which vital force names only the special aspect of chemico-physical forces in organisms. He saw no objection to its facts but doubted that the term was justified, because it gave up the hard-won conviction of unity of cause in nature2. Bose (1902) quoted a criticism that later vitalists attempted no analysis of vital force and used it as a mystical explanation3.

02

Driesch and entelechy

Driesch, in The Science and Philosophy of the Organism (1908), argued for entelechy. In the held passage he wrote that entelechy becomes a positive concept once introspective self-analysis has awakened a new category, and that it can then be understood4. He added that his indirect proofs of vitalism are not superseded by this step but gain their proper meaning from it4. Child (1915) named Driesch the chief exponent of the renewed vitalism and noted that the term entelechy follows Aristotle. Child also observed that most biologists had discarded vital force as evidence for physico-chemical laws in living things accumulated5.

03

Loeb, Lotka and Bernard

Loeb (1916) admitted that life phenomena are attached to physicochemical manifestations. He held that only material conditions can be known, not first causes, that determinism can only be physicochemical, and that vital force belongs to the metaphysical world6. Here Loeb and Driesch part ways: Driesch built a positive concept of entelechy, while Loeb placed vital force outside what science can reach46. Lotka (1925) urged caution in coining phrases such as vital force. He cited Bunge, an advocate of vitalism, who called it a convenient resting place for reason7. Bernard held that the forming of a chicken's body follows chemico-physical laws, while the guiding idea belongs neither to chemistry nor to physics8.

04

Mechanism in recent work

Recent papers in the corpus use the word mechanistic in a working sense. Pio-Lopez and colleagues (2022) say their approach to cognition parallels earlier arguments about morphogenesis. They hold that understanding collective cell behaviour in embryogenesis and regeneration needs reductive molecular mechanistic information. They also require a consideration of information processing and goal-directed action9. The held passage does not present this as a return to vital force. It asks for mechanism and goal-directedness together.

SourcesEach quotation was checked word for word against the passage it opens.
  1. Vitalism says, no ; a special force, vital force, prevails in organisms and induces vital phenomena.Verworn, M., 1899 · General Physiology: An Outline of the Science of Life · open at passage 132
  2. Mechanical vitalism is the view that vital phenomena depend at bottom upon the agency of physical and chemical forcesVerworn, M., 1899 · General Physiology: An Outline of the Science of Life · open at passage 140
  3. Later vitalists, however, attempted no analysis of vital force; they employed it in a wholly mystical form as a convenient explanation of all sorts of vital phenomena.Bose, J. C., 1902 · Response in the Living and Non-Living · open at passage 341
  4. Entelechy now becomes a positive concept, created as the manifestation of the new category that was wanted.Driesch, H., 1908 · The Science and Philosophy of the Organism · open at passage 628
  5. Driesch, at present the chief exponent of this line of thought, has postulated the existence of a controlling and ordering principle which he calls entelechy, following Aristotle.Child, C. M., 1915 · Individuality in Organisms · open at passage 45
  6. Determinism can never be but physicochemical determinism. The vital force and life belong to the metaphysical world.Loeb, J., 1916 · The Organism as a Whole, from a Physicochemical Viewpoint · open at passage 11
  7. I regard vital force as a convenient resting place where, to quote Kant,Lotka, A. J., 1925 · Elements of Physical Biology · open at passage 95
  8. the guiding idea of the vital evolution is essentially of the domain of life and belongs neither to chemistry nor to physics nor to anything else.Bernard, C., 1957 · An Introduction to the Study of Experimental Medicine · open at passage 276
  9. requires not only reductive molecular biology-based mechanistic information, but also a consideration of information processing and goal-directed actionPio-Lopez L, Kuchling F, Tung A, Pezzulo G, Levin M, 2022 · Active inference, morphogenesis, and computational psychiatry · open at passage 10
Linked ideas
Pio-Lopez and colleagues pair mechanistic detail with goal-directed action, a position between strict reduction and an added vital principle.
Driesch's entelechy and Bernard's guiding idea were offered as accounts of how organisms are built to a plan, the problem field concepts also address.
Loeb says no chance coming together of physicochemical events builds each organism after a plan, which frames the form problem the vitalists raised.
Fábregas-Tejeda and Sims expect causal-mechanistic work to become standard in basal cognition research, as it did in Evo-Devo.
Regenerationrelated to
Driesch's entelechy is described as responding to disturbed normality, including through stimuli of restitution, the kind of case regeneration studies examine.
Determinism in physiology is the working assumption of the mechanist side; the debate concerns whether living responses can be fully fixed by conditions.
Galvanotaxisin tension with
Loeb reads the response as ion concentration changes at cell boundaries. Driesch separately argues that true taxis is probably rare, which puts the two on different sides.
Driesch treats the change of a tropism's sense as a morphogenetic, restitutive act; Loeb reduces tropisms to physical and chemical causes shared by plants and animals.
Loeb and Lillie explain antagonism by physical chemistry, including emulsion models, rather than by any special vital property.
Trial and errorrelated to
Loeb and Driesch each treated the term as a test of whether behavior needs more than physicochemical explanation.
Tropismrelated to
Loeb's tropism theory was a mechanistic route to behaviour; Driesch wrote on tropisms from his own standpoint.
Criteria of mindin tension with
Driesch's psychoid and Loeb's physiological programme give opposed answers on how mind relates to mechanism.
Self-regulation is a physical account of the ordering that vitalists attributed to a special principle.
Evolvabilityin tension with
Sousa and colleagues call thermodynamics chemistry's deterministic version of natural selection, a mechanistic framing of how evolving systems arise.
Only an indirect link: Levin urges using both mechanist and organicist toolboxes, and the Physarum passage seeks molecular mechanisms (GABA-receptor transcripts, microtubules) for learning. Neither mentions vitalism.
Where it is discussedPassages matching vitalism, vital force, entelechy, mechanistic
1899General Physiology: An Outline of the Science of Life · Verworn, M.264
1908The Science and Philosophy of the Organism · Driesch, H.254
1957An Introduction to the Study of Experimental Medicine · Bernard, C.110
1915Principles of General Physiology · Bayliss, W. M.47
1923Protoplasmic Action and Nervous Action · Lillie, R. S.44
1926A Bipolar Theory of Living Processes · Crile, G. W.42
1925Elements of Physical Biology · Lotka, A. J.26
1890The Principles of Psychology, Vols. 1-2 · James, W.25
1902Response in the Living and Non-Living · Bose, J. C.24
1924Physiological Foundations of Behavior · Child, C. M.22