TY - BOOK AU - Corréard,Nicolas TI - Living Automata? The Instinct Controversy (1630-1660) PY - 2024///. N1 - 63 N2 - The notion of instinct emerged in the modern zoological sense in the middle of the seventeenth century. Several positions existed, revealing a variety of epistemological options: while Montaigne and Descartes, for opposite reasons, tended to evacuate this notion, Pierre Chanet granted it maximum extension, within a mechanistic and finalistic framework. Engaged in a lively polemic against the latter, Cureau de la Chambre redefined instinct as innate and specialized knowledge, compatible with the thesis of animal rationality. His arguments would serve a more radical position, that of the libertins érudits, who hesitated between a complete assimilation of reason with instinct, and a full reversal of their traditional hierarchy UR - https://shs.cairn.info/journal-dix-septieme-siecle-2023-4-page-695?lang=en&redirect-ssocas=7080 ER -