Cabanis

CABANIS Pierre Jean (Pierre Jean Cabanis, 1757-1808), a noted French philosopher and physician, one of the last and most moderate representatives of 18th-century materialism. He received his medical education in Paris. In 1789 he published "Observations sur les hopitaux" (Paris), after which he was appointed chief physician of the Paris hospitals. Subsequently he was a professor at the medical school of Paris. An opponent of the old regime, during the revolution he joined the moderate-revolutionary movements. He was a member of the Council of Five Hundred, and after the coup of 18 Brumaire he participated in the commission for strengthening Napoleon's power. However, for the latter, C. was too bold a thinker. In 1807, C. withdrew from public life.-His main work: "Traite de physique et de morale de l'homme" (P., 1802; Russian edition-"Relations between the physical and moral nature of man", SPB, 1865-66). Cabanis in general stands on the viewpoint of 18th-century mechanical materialism. Reducing the complex to the simple, higher qualities to lower ones (for example, social regularities to biological ones) is characteristic also of C. Here is what he writes, for example, about "public morality". "Almost all scientists who have studied the laws of thought and language or other signs serving for the expression of thought, as well as the foundations of private and public morality, felt the need to go in their research by studying the physical nature of man". Unlike the materialists of the older generation, C. attaches great importance to this "physical nature"; the latter must be taken into account in the study of the human psychic world. C. examines in detail the role of age, sex, temperament, diseases, climate, etc. in the formation of thoughts. Without diminishing the importance of education, he emphasizes the role of heredity. He divides impressions into external (the result of environmental influences) and internal; the latter are the result of the norms of development of the organism or its pathological state.-Works of C. (besides those mentioned): "Serment d'un medecin" (P., 1783); "Du degre de certitude en medecine"(P., 1797); "Coup d'oeil sur les revolutions et la reforme de la medecine"(P., 1804).