Il regno delle circostanze. La nozione di carattere tra Helvétius e Stendhal

The main purpose of this essay is to highlight the originality of Stendhal's intellectual position against the background of the early nineteenth century French culture. It is the age of Cabanis, Bichat and Maine de Biran, that is an era when physiology was born and with it the idea of an organic inner life had emerged. The slogan of the time might have been: each one has its own personality, depending on its own physical organization. Stendhal's attitude is completely different: for him, as a good follower of Helvétius, the character of a person is not something natural or innate, but it is the result of outside and fortuitous circumstances. Stendhal's characters are the radiant proof of that.