A non-metaphysical evaluation of vitalism in the early twentieth century

Chen, Bohang

doi:10.1007/s40656-018-0221-2

Cited by 13 publications

(5 citation statements)

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“…However, there is a different way of rejecting vitalism, and I call it a logical refutation. This refutation was endorsed in the early twentieth century by a few biologists and philosophers (for details see Chen 2018). In this logical refutation, first of all, vitalism is not treated as a metaphysical heresy; rather, it is received as a promising (or at least not-too-bad) scientific theory.…”

Section: Logic I: the Logical (In Contrast To The Metaphysical) Refut...mentioning

confidence: 99%

A Historico-Logical Re-assessment of Hans Driesch’s Vitalism

Chen

2023

History, Philosophy and Theory of the Life Sciences

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Today vitalism is widely dismissed as a metaphysical heresy. For instance, Brigandt and Love (Reductionism in biology. In: Zalta EN (ed) The stanford encyclopedia of philosophy, 2017) claimed that “the denial of physicalism by vitalism, the doctrine that biological systems are governed by forces that are not physico-chemical, is largely of historical interest” (p. 3). Perhaps the most “infamous” vitalist is the German biologist Hans Driesch. However, Driesch (In Rádl E (ed) Actes du Huitième Congrès International de Philosophie a Prague 2–7 septembre 1934. Comité d’Organisation du Congrès, Prague, pp 10–30, 1936) himself very explicitly stated that his vitalism is “neither ‘mysticism’[…]nor ‘metaphysics’” (p. 27). So, in order to address the mismatch between the present conception of vitalism and his own, I seek to offer a historico-logical re-assessment of Driesch’s vitalism. From the historical point of view, I show that Driesch had provided long ignored theoretical reflections on the nature of entelechy (the central concept in his vitalism), especially those in relation to evolution and physics. From the logical point of view, following logical empiricists (Phillipp Frank and Rudolf Carnap), I indicate that Driesch’s vitalism should be rejected due to its lack of vital laws, at least with respect to current biology; it is an unestablished theory rather than a metaphysical heresy. Ironically, some current theoretical biologists have proposed similar theories (or principles and laws) of life, even though they (incoherently) reject Driesch’s vitalism. In the end, I briefly conclude that the failure of vitalism actually alludes to the fact that even today we understand very little about the nature of life (I mean, the pure concept/phenomenon of life!) (While I cannot elaborate here, it is of extremely importance not to conflate knowledge about the pure concept/phenomenon of life and knowledge about objects predicatable of life (Ben-Naim, manuscript, p. 281). For instance, it is common among philosophers of biology today to cite elementary knowledge in a particular biological discipline as offering a better understanding of life. Yet their promise fails to be delivered. At best, they are merely relying on knowledge about objects predicatable of life (in most cases, merely knowledge about complex organizations of matter: about heredity, reproduction, development, metabolism, etc); but such knowledge has not been shown of any relevance to the pure concept/phenomenon of life).

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Section: Logic I: the Logical (In Contrast To The Metaphysical) Refut...mentioning

confidence: 99%

A Historico-Logical Re-assessment of Hans Driesch’s Vitalism

Chen

2023

History, Philosophy and Theory of the Life Sciences

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“…Hans Driesch's "harmonic equipotential system" was first described by Driesch in 1899. For a review of 'vitalism in the early twentieth century' see Chen (2018). said: "One engendered many, many engendered millionsand a million things return to one."…”

Section: Equilibrium Conditionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Geobiology

Becking¹

2022

Geochem. Persp.

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Lourens Baas Becking (1895-1963) was a Dutch plant physiologist, trained in the Botanical Laboratory of Utrecht University. After graduating in 1919, he worked in America at Stanford University, where he obtained his Doctor’s degree in 1921. From 1928, he was Herzstein Professor of Biology and Director of the Jacques Loeb Physiological Laboratory at the Hopkins Marine Station in Palo Alto. In 1931, he became Professor of General Botany at the University of Leiden. There, he and his staff and students continued to work on the research of microorganisms under extreme saline conditions. In 1939, he was appointed Director of the institutes of the Botanic Garden at Buitenzorg (Bogor) in the Dutch East Indies (Indonesia). In May 1940, when the war broke out, he was in Leiden to retire from his professorship. The war prevented his return to his family and the institutes in the East Indies. Baas Becking made several failed attempts to escape to England. These resulted in imprisonments by the German occupying authorities in Scheveningen (1940-1941) and in Utrecht and the German Zuchthaus in Siegburg (1944-1945). An ordeal that he barely survived due to the inhuman situation in the penitentiary and typhus. In July and August 1944, as a prisoner of the German Kriegsmarine in Utrecht, he wrote in seven weeks a manuscript of Geobiology, an essay on the relationship between living organisms and the earth. It was an update of his earlier ideas. Baas Becking had been inspired by Lawrence Henderson’s The Fitness of the Environment (1913), Victor Moritz Goldschmidt's Der Stoffwechsel der Erde (1922) and Grundlagen der quantitativen Geochemie (1933), Alfred J. Lotka’s Elements of Physical Biology (1924) and Vladimir Vernadsky’s La Géochimie (1924). They were with Frank W. Clarke’s The Data of Geochemistry (1916), sources for his perception of The Universality of Life in 1927, which integrated Vernadsky’s concepts of biosphere and geosphere. Long before James Lovelock and Lynn Margulis defined the Gaia hypothesis in the early 1970s, Baas Becking discussed Gaia or Life and Earth in his inaugural address in 1931. In this tract he also succinctly summarised the ubiquity hypothesis, borrowed from the work of Martinus Beijerinck, as “Everything is everywhere, but the Milieu selects.” The biological “law” was further elaborated in Geobiologie of inleiding tot de milieukunde (1934, English version 2016, Baas Becking’s Geobiology). In the Utrecht prison Baas Becking wrote his scientific testament. In the ten years since the publication of Geobiologie, he “wished to do justice to the work that was performed in Leiden by so many workers”, in an English textbook. With a limited access to scientific literature, he wrote the manuscript Geobiology in a ledger in a barely legible handwriting. The document reflected his vast biological knowledge and his idea of mutual dependence of vital-units (cells, tissues, organs, organism, communities), either of a parasitic, mutualistic or commensalistic character. This relationship was elaborated in his model of symbiosis. His description of the role of man in Geobiology is a personal complaint of a geobiologist over the disastrous treatment of the earth by man. With his concept of “dissipation”, he introduced a material analogue for “the entropy lowering capacity of living systems”. It summarised his conviction that the human intellect and life condition were attributes of free will. Although Geobiology (1944) remained unfinished and had major gaps, it still is an inspiring memoir of a scientist who records his enlightened vision on the relationship between life and earth. In this issue of Geochemical Perspectives the manuscript of Geobiology is integrally transcribed, annotated, edited and introduced by Dr. Alexander J.P. Raat, who graduated in 1974 in Leiden as a plant physiologist. The transcript is published with the original illustrations. A sketch of Baas Becking’s life and works is part of the introduction. The annotation and introduction refer to many of his published and unpublished studies. Among these is an unpublished, further updated and revised version of Geobiology, which he completed in 1953 in Australia.

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“…To make a reasoned determination regarding the role of vitalism within health care, one must examine vitalism's origins and meanings. This is no easy task because of vitalism's heterogeneity and different connotative meanings [12,21,22].…”

Section: History Of Vitalism Vitalism Definedmentioning

confidence: 99%

Vitalism in contemporary chiropractic: a help or a hinderance?

Simpson

Young

2020

Chiropr Man Therap

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Background: Chiropractic emerged in 1895 and was promoted as a viable health care substitute in direct competition with the medical profession. This was an era when there was a belief that one cause and one cure for all disease would be discovered. The chiropractic version was a theory that most diseases were caused by subluxated (slightly displaced) vertebrae interfering with "nerve vibrations" (a supernatural, vital force) and could be cured by adjusting (repositioning) vertebrae, thereby removing the interference with the body's inherent capacity to heal. DD Palmer, the originator of chiropractic, established chiropractic based on vitalistic principles. Anecdotally, the authors have observed that many chiropractors who overtly claim to be "vitalists" cannot define the term. Therefore, we sought the origins of vitalism and to examine its effects on chiropractic today. Discussion: Vitalism arose out of human curiosity around the biggest questions: Where do we come from? What is life? For some, life was derived from an unknown and unknowable vital force. For others, a vital force was a placeholder, a piece of knowledge not yet grasped but attainable. Developments in science have demonstrated there is no longer a need to invoke vitalistic entities as either explanations or hypotheses for biological phenomena. Nevertheless, vitalism remains within chiropractic. In this examination of vitalism within chiropractic we explore the history of vitalism, vitalism within chiropractic and whether a vitalistic ideology is compatible with the legal and ethical requirements for registered health care professionals such as chiropractors. Conclusion: Vitalism has had many meanings throughout the centuries of recorded history. Though only vaguely defined by chiropractors, vitalism, as a representation of supernatural force and therefore an untestable hypothesis, sits at the heart of the divisions within chiropractic and acts as an impediment to chiropractic legitimacy, cultural authority and integration into mainstream health care.

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A non-metaphysical evaluation of vitalism in the early twentieth century

Cited by 13 publications

References 60 publications

A Historico-Logical Re-assessment of Hans Driesch’s Vitalism

A Historico-Logical Re-assessment of Hans Driesch’s Vitalism

Geobiology

Vitalism in contemporary chiropractic: a help or a hinderance?

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