La division du travail physiologique : désuétude d’un concept récidiviste en biologie (1830-1900)

Abstract

The division of physiological labour is an outdated concept in biology. When the expression is used, it is without regard to its important nomological function in the biology of the second half of the 19th Century. We will analyse the importation of the division of labour from economics to biology, despite the difficulties of validation due to its transfer from one science to the other. The notion thus continued its career in a biology won over to cell theory, while its economic determinations lost their relevance. We will conclude by analyzing its disappearance at the beginning of the 20th Century. The division of physiological labour could probably only return to a metaphorical stage once purified from its primitive economicity.