La localisation viscérale des passions selon Pinel, Esquirol et leurs prédécesseurs, et le concept contemporain d’intéroception

Abstract

Seventeenth-century philosophers used the terms “passions” or “passions of the soul” to refer to what we call emotions. The debate as to whether their origin was cerebral or peripheral, i.e. epigastric, was at that time led by two famous protagonists, René Descartes and Marin Cureau de la Chambre. These concepts were still subject to controversy at the beginning of the 19th century, by which time the debates were no longer philosophers, but rather alienists. Philippe Pinel and his student Jean-Étienne Esquirol remained staunch epigastralgists, as was Pierre-Antoine Prost. Their writings indicate that they were unaware of the work of certain physiologists who were their contemporaries, such as Pierre Brisseau and François Pourfour du Petit, and who were uncovering a new physiology, that of the autonomic nervous system. Over the next century, the theories concerning emotions benefited from constant advances in physiology and pathophysiology but continued to confront the problem of their central or peripheral origin. The 21st century finally combined the two theories within a concept of interoception or the physiological sense of the perception of the body's state. This article covers three centuries of evolution in the concepts and knowledge of the physiology of what brings colour to life, our emotions.