Walter B. Cannon, L. J. Henderson, and the Organic Analogy

Cross, Stephen; Albury, W. R.

doi:10.1086/368665

Cited by 38 publications

(21 citation statements)

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“…Stephen Cross and William Albury (1987) have, from their angle, decoded social homeostasis as a vindication of technocratic power by the middle class in the Interwar period. As enlightening as these two approaches can be, they don't help us to come to grips with the type of relationship that Cannon sought to establish between political and scientific practices.…”

Section: The Question Of Cannon's Activismmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…For Cross and Albury (1987), on the contrary, while it is in his role as physiologist that Cannon became politically engaged, his political side-taking could only be, finally, the fruit of a "false consciousness" implicitly reproducing the discourse of a social class striving for social domination. This is what the two authors suggest in highlighting the fact that the semantic field that Cannon deploys in his physiology is already politicized:…”

Section: The Question Of Cannon's Activismmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Birth of the Allostatic Model: From Cannon’s Biocracy to Critical Physiology

Arminjon

2015

J Hist Biol

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(Levins, Lewontin, 1985, p. 287) Many biologists and historians of the life sciences would follow Georges Canguilhem in recognizing the mechanism of regulation as the "supreme biological fact" (Canguilhem, 1974, p. 3, our translation). Even so, we are far from having a consensus about how we should conceptualize these factswitness the diverse notions that have succeeded each other in the course of the 20th century : the constancy of the milieu intérieur (Bernard, 1872) ;

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Section: The Question Of Cannon's Activismmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: The Question Of Cannon's Activismmentioning

confidence: 99%

Birth of the Allostatic Model: From Cannon’s Biocracy to Critical Physiology

Arminjon

2015

J Hist Biol

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“…The focus is on the properties of a part (an institution) from the viewpoint of a hypothesized need of the system (society). The organismic analogies of physiologists such as Walter Cannon and Lawrence Henderson, according to whom governmental institutions could be seen as organs keeping society in a societal homeostasis, were influential on later functionalist thinking, such as the work of Talcott Parsons (Cross and Albury 1987). This 'anatomical-physiological' view was also expressed by people with markedly different social views, such as Carl Menger and Friedrich Hayek, who both claimed in a similar vein that social institutions should be seen as organs of an encompassing social organism (Vromen 1995, 174-176).…”

Section: Mechanisms As Componential Causal Systemsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Two Concepts of Mechanism: Componential Causal System and Abstract Form of Interaction

Kuorikoski¹

2009

International Studies in the Philosophy of Science

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Although there has been much recent discussion on mechanisms in philosophy of science and social theory, no shared understanding of the crucial concept itself has emerged. In this paper, a distinction between two core concepts of mechanism is made on the basis that the concepts correspond to two different research strategies: the concept of mechanism as a componential causal system is associated with the heuristic of functional decomposition and spatial localization and the concept of mechanism as an abstract form of interaction is associated with the strategy of abstraction and simple models. The causal facts assumed and the theoretical consequences entailed by an explanation with a given mechanism differ according to which concept of mechanism is in use. Research strategies associated with mechanism concepts also involve characteristic biases that should be taken into account when using them, especially in new areas of application.

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“…I do not have knowledge of Sherrington's impact in non-English language cultures. For comparable debates in North America, see Cross and Albury 1987;Kingsland 1993;Rainger, Benson and Maienschein 1988;Rosenberg 1998. Sherrington and his colleagues had no time at all for "philosophers of life" like Wilhelm Driesch, or for the teleology of the British biologist, E. S. Russell.…”

Section: "Integration"mentioning

confidence: 99%

Representations of Mind: C. S. Sherrington and Scientific Opinion, c.1930–1950

Smith¹

2001

SIC

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ArgumentRecent writers in the brain sciences and the philosophy of mind contrast modern biological theories of consciousness with a mind-body dualism supposedly dominant half-a-century ago which they regard as scientifically sterile. Reference to C. S. Sherrington often signals the rejected dualism. This paper re-examines Sherrington's highly qualified position and links it to the arguments of British scientists for whom he was a figurehead in the 1930s and 1940s. I interpret the mind-body literature as ancillary to debates about cultural values. From this perspective, dualism represents a defense of a threatened conservative culture. Dismissal of scientists' supposed "dualism" does little to illuminate the tension in their thought between defense of values traditionally associated with mind and hope for an integrated mind-body science. This leads to comments on Sherrington's own concept of integration. The conclusion relates these points to the new research in the brain sciences evident by the end of the 1940s. 1 These views do not go unchallenged. For the argument that people, not brains, think, see Coulter 1989; and for the argument that natural science explanations do not address what we wish to understand about human action, see e.g., Taylor [1971] 1985. Materialists select an easy target in attacking outmoded forms of ontological dualism. Biological theorists of consciousness have also attacked "folk psychology"; but again there are critics who regard them as attacking straw-men (see Kusch 1998).

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Walter B. Cannon, L. J. Henderson, and the Organic Analogy

Cited by 38 publications

References 1 publication

Birth of the Allostatic Model: From Cannon’s Biocracy to Critical Physiology

Birth of the Allostatic Model: From Cannon’s Biocracy to Critical Physiology

Two Concepts of Mechanism: Componential Causal System and Abstract Form of Interaction

Representations of Mind: C. S. Sherrington and Scientific Opinion, c.1930–1950

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