Action and Reaction: The Life and Adventures of a Couple

by Jean Starobinski, Sophie Hawkes (translator), Jeff Fort (translator)

What do biologists mean when they say that to live is to react? Why was the term abreaction invented and later abandoned by the first generation of psychoanalysts? What is meant by reactionary politics? These are but a few of the questions the internationally renowned scholar Jean Starobinski answers in his conceptual history of the word pair, action and reaction.Not simply a history of ideas, Action and Reaction is also a semantic and philological history, a literary history, a history of medicine, and a history of the biological sciences. By concentrating on the moment when scientific language and ordinary language diverge, Starobinski uncovers a genealogy of the human and natural sciences through their usage of action and reaction as metaphors. Newton's law -- to every action there is an equal and opposite reaction -- becomes a point of departure for an exploration of the lexical and metaphorical traces left in its wake. Starobinski analyzes the scientific, literary, and political effects of the use of the terms action and reaction to describe and explain the material universe, the living body, historical events, and psychological behavior. In what he calls a "polyphonic score" -- a kind of mosaic -- he uses his subject to offer new insights into the work of philosophers (Aristotle, Leibniz, Kant, Nietzsche, Jaspers), scientists (Newton, Bichat, Bernard, Bernheim, Freud), and writers (Diderot, Constant, Balzac, Poe, Valry). Ultimately, the book explores the power and danger of metaphorical language and questions the convergence and collapse of scientific and moral explanations of the universe.

Genres: Philosophy

480 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1999

About the author

Jean Starobinski studied classical literature, and then medicine at the University of Geneva, and graduated from that school with a doctorate in letters (docteur ès lettres) and in medicine. He taught French literature at the Johns Hopkins University, the University of Basel and at the University of Geneva, where he also taught courses in the history of ideas and the history of medicine.

His existential and phenomenological literary criticism is sometimes grouped with the so-called "Geneva School". He has written landmark works on French literature of the 18th century – including works on the writers Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Denis Diderot, Voltaire – and also on authors of other periods (such as Michel de Montaigne). He has also written on contemporary poetry, art, and the problems of interpretation. His books have been translated in dozens of languages.

His knowledge of medicine and psychiatry brought him to study the history of melancholia (notably in the Trois Fureurs, 1974). He was the first scholar to publish work (in 1964) on Ferdinand de Saussure's study of anagrams.

Jean Starobinski is a member of the Académie des Sciences Morales et Politiques (a component of the Institut de France) and other French, European and American learned academies. He has honorary degrees (honoris causa) from numerous universities in Europe and America.