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Speaker(s): Anton Matystin

"Of Beasts and Men: Animal Souls in the French Literature of the Eighteenth Century"

Abstract: This working paper is the result of a research project that I began some time ago and have recently returned to with the hope of turning it into an article. It explores the significance and the evolution of the debates about animal souls in the French-speaking world of the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries paying particular attention to the perceived theological stakes. Theories of animal cognition served as a crucial test case for the philosophical schools that were competing for prominence in the learned world of the period. By seeing how various explanations of animal behavior functioned in the context of an intellectual world where experimental science and physiology were slowly displacing theology and metaphysics as the primary subjects of interest.