Maine de Biran negli scritti dei primi psichiatri italiani: vitalismo, positivismo e azione dell’anima

Maine de Biran in the Writings of the First Italian Psychiatrists : Automatism, Vitalism and Action of the Soul · There is no doubt that Maine de Biran’s philosophy had a significant influence on 19th-century French alienism. Scholarship has indeed shown at length how French alienists (especially those belonging to the Société médico-psychologique) conveyed a description of madness and mental illnesses in synergy with Biranian doctrine. Biran himself was fascinated by the question of the exceptional states of the mind (such as madness, hallucinations, dreams, and somnambulism), considered in the light of his theory of voluntary effort. However, the interest of Italian psychiatry for Biranian thought is less or not at all explored. While it is true that this tradition did not make a systematic use of Biran’s theory, its presence in the first writings of Italian psychiatrists is however noteworthy, especially the instrumental use that these scholars made of Biran’s philosophy. In this paper, alongside briefly reconstructing the birth and development of Italian psychiatry, I will focus on some writings by Andrea Verga (1811-1895) and Francesco Bonucci (1826-1869), which display a peculiar reading of Biran’s vitalism.