Charles Bonnet

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Charles Bonnet

Charles Bonnet (born March 13, 1720 in Geneva ; † May 20, 1793 there , entitled to live in Geneva) was a Geneva scientist , philosopher and lawyer during the Enlightenment . The discovery of parthenogenesis goes back to him .

Live and act

Biological research

Bonnet studied law and also dealt with scientific studies. At the age of 20 he wrote his study on the reproduction of aphids without fertilization and thus described parthenogenesis for the first time . He then worked with Trembley on the polyps and made observations on the respiration of the caterpillars and butterflies and the structure of the tapeworm .

Bonnet suspected that microorganisms did not - as claimed by John Turberville Needham (1713–1781) and Leclerc - arise through spontaneous generation ( abiogenesis ) in closed vessels with meat broth, but could get into the vessels used through "invisible openings". As a very early proponent of the theory of evolution , he assumed that nature always produces new designs, of which the monkey z. B. was the last attempt before man.

Charles Bonnet is the first to describe the medical syndrome named after him , the Charles Bonnet Syndrome : after his grandfather Charles Lullin underwent cataract surgery at the age of 77, which eventually made him blind, he got lively years later Hallucinations of men and women, carriages and houses. He knew he was hallucinating and these things didn't really exist. Bonnet realized that his grandfather's brain was causing the hallucinations, as it lacked the stimulus of the outside world. In his later life, Charles Bonnet eventually developed the syndrome he himself described.

The “Palingénésie philosophique” from 1769

When an eye disease made further microscopic observations impossible for him, he began speculative research and studied Christianity in particular . He wrote a treatise on survival after death ( Idées sur l'état futur des êtres vivants, ou Palingénésie philosophique , Geneva 1769), which Johann Kaspar Lavater wrote under the title Philosophical investigation of the evidence for Christianity (Zurich 1771) in part German was translated. Lavater dedicated the treatise to Moses Mendelssohn in order to induce him to refute it or to convert to Christianity. Mendelssohn's irritated response caused the Enlightenment officer Bonnet to publicly distance himself from Lavater.

After Bonnet had been a member of the Grand Council of Geneva from 1752 to 1768 , he retired to his in-laws' estate in Genthod on Lake Geneva. He worked there as a private scholar from 1766 .

Philosophical empiricism

Bonnet's philosophy was an empiricism . With John Locke and Étienne Bonnot de Condillac , he derived all ideas of sensory perceptions that arise in the soul through oscillation of the brain fibers, just as, conversely, all movements emanating from it are caused by such. The process itself, how the brain affects the soul or the soul, remains a mystery. Since the soul, although itself immaterial, is unable to think without connection with an organic substance (a body, however fine it may be), he concludes that it will either not continue or only continue in connection with a new body but the manner of this continuation could not give any idea.

Memberships / Awards

In 1757 Bonnet was elected a member of the Göttingen Academy of Sciences , in 1763 an external member of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences and in 1764 a member of the Leopoldina Academic Academy . In 1786 he became a foreign member of the Prussian Academy of Sciences . Since 1764 he was an honorary member of the Russian Academy of Sciences in St. Petersburg . He was a member of the Académie des Sciences in Paris.

Other works

literature

Web links

Commons : Charles Bonnet  - album with pictures, videos and audio files
Wikisource: Charles Bonnet  - Sources and full texts (French)

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ personal data . DNB , accessed on May 9, 2014 .
  2. ↑ Holger Krahnke: The members of the Academy of Sciences in Göttingen 1751-2001 (= Treatises of the Academy of Sciences in Göttingen, Philological-Historical Class. Volume 3, Vol. 246 = Treatises of the Academy of Sciences in Göttingen, Mathematical-Physical Class. Episode 3, vol. 50). Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2001, ISBN 3-525-82516-1 , p. 44.
  3. ^ Charles Bonnet's membership entry at the Bavarian Academy of Sciences , accessed on December 27, 2016.
  4. ^ Members of the previous academies. Charles Bonnet. Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities , accessed on February 25, 2015 .
  5. ^ Foreign members of the Russian Academy of Sciences since 1724. Charles Bonnet. Russian Academy of Sciences, accessed August 3, 2015 .
  6. ^ Directory of members since 1666: letter B. Académie des sciences, accessed on September 23, 2019 (French).
personal data
SURNAME Bonnet, Charles
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Swiss scientist, philosopher and lawyer
DATE OF BIRTH March 13, 1720
PLACE OF BIRTH Geneva
DATE OF DEATH May 20, 1793
Place of death Geneva