Biran et le traitement moral de la subjectivité mélancolique

In the present work we try to clarify how, in the understanding of his own temperament, but also in his philosophical conception of the mind and body relationship, Maine de Biran was influenced by the reading of the authors of Moral Therapy, particularly by Pinel. Proceeding from the development of melancholy as an organic-psychic condition with a broad spectrum of manifestations, from mild sadness to major depression, we explore how the imposition of the new model of scientific positivism was understood by Biran. Pinel marks Biran indelibly, mostly in the theoretical inquiry of understanding the non-controllable (and unforeseen) processes of affectivity and the act of will. We stress that for Biran, at least implicitly, one is dealing with an ethical project in the full sense of the term, a dynamic that stays grounded in the existential understanding of oneself.