Abstract

Was Claude Bernard a mechanicist or a vitalist? What we intend to show first is that, with a careful choice of quotes, it is possible to prove both claims. Then is it a theoretical weakness and an epistemological indecision? The thesis of this essay is that Claude Bernard's indecision is the epistemological indecision of Modernity, which has developed a binary style of thinking, then producing a series of hybridizations that are both necessary and improbable. It is a question of attitudes and demands and the answer is to be found from both an epistemological and an anthropological point of view.