The conference aims at analysing the various attempts to deal with the bodily activities traditionally attributed to vegetative powers—nutrition, generation, sleep, and metabolism—that served for the understanding and definition of life. Vegetative powers are a key topic for any comprehension of living bodies and definition of life: to vegetate is a crucial way to define life in bodies. Traditionally attributed to either natural spirit or the vegetative soul, vegetative activities regulated the development and maintenance of life and, thus, served to differentiate between inert and living bodies. Such operations endowed living beings with basic activities and characterized the most basic soul-body relationship common to all living beings.

Program: PD_Vegetative Power 12-13.09.2018