Vitalism is a belief that starts from the premise that "living organisms are fundamentally different from non-living entities because they contain some non-physical element or are governed by different principles than are inanimate things."
Where vitalism explicitly invokes a vital principle, that element is often referred to as the "vital spark," "energy," or "''
élan vital
''Élan vital'' () is a term coined by French philosopher Henri Bergson in his 1907 book '' Creative Evolution'', in which he addresses the question of self-organisation and spontaneous morphogenesis of things in an increasingly complex manner ...
''," which some equate with the
soul
In many religious and philosophical traditions, there is a belief that a soul is "the immaterial aspect or essence of a human being".
Etymology
The Modern English noun '' soul'' is derived from Old English ''sāwol, sāwel''. The earliest atte ...
. In the 18th and 19th centuries vitalism was
discussed among biologists, between those who felt that the known mechanics of physics would eventually explain the difference between life and non-life and vitalists who argued that the processes of life could not be reduced to a mechanistic process. Vitalist biologists such as
Johannes Reinke
Johannes Reinke (February 3, 1849 – February 25, 1931) was a German botanist and philosopher who was a native of Ziethen, Lauenburg. He is remembered for his research of benthic marine algae.
Academic background
Reinke studied botany with h ...
proposed
testable
Testability is a primary aspect of Science and the Scientific Method and is a property applying to an empirical hypothesis, involves two components:
#Falsifiability or defeasibility, which means that counterexamples to the hypothesis are logicall ...
hypotheses meant to show inadequacies with mechanistic explanations, but their experiments failed to provide support for vitalism. Biologists now consider vitalism in this sense to have been refuted by
empirical evidence
Empirical evidence for a proposition is evidence, i.e. what supports or counters this proposition, that is constituted by or accessible to sense experience or experimental procedure. Empirical evidence is of central importance to the sciences ...
, and hence regard it either as a
superseded scientific theory
This list catalogs well-accepted theories in science and pre-scientific natural philosophy and natural history which have since been superseded by scientific theories. Many discarded explanations were once supported by a scientific consensus, b ...
,
or, since the mid-20th century, as a
pseudoscience
Pseudoscience consists of statements, beliefs, or practices that claim to be both scientific and factual but are incompatible with the scientific method. Pseudoscience is often characterized by contradictory, exaggerated or unfalsifiable clai ...
.
Vitalism has a long history in
medical
Medicine is the science and practice of caring for a patient, managing the diagnosis, prognosis, prevention, treatment, palliation of their injury or disease, and promoting their health. Medicine encompasses a variety of health care practic ...
philosophies: many
traditional healing practices posited that disease results from some imbalance in vital forces.
History
Ancient times
The notion that bodily functions are due to a vitalistic principle existing in all living creatures has roots going back at least to
ancient Egypt. In
Greek philosophy
Ancient Greek philosophy arose in the 6th century BC, marking the end of the Greek Dark Ages. Greek philosophy continued throughout the Hellenistic period and the period in which Greece and most Greek-inhabited lands were part of the Roman Empi ...
, the
Milesian school
The Ionian school of Pre-Socratic philosophy was centred in Miletus, Ionia in the 6th century BC. Miletus and its environment was a thriving mercantile melting pot of current ideas of the time. The Ionian School included such thinkers as Thales, ...
proposed natural explanations
deduced from
materialism and
mechanism
Mechanism may refer to:
* Mechanism (engineering), rigid bodies connected by joints in order to accomplish a desired force and/or motion transmission
*Mechanism (biology), explaining how a feature is created
*Mechanism (philosophy), a theory that ...
. However, by the time of
Lucretius
Titus Lucretius Carus ( , ; – ) was a Roman poet and philosopher. His only known work is the philosophical poem ''De rerum natura'', a didactic work about the tenets and philosophy of Epicureanism, and which usually is translated into En ...
, this account was supplemented, (for example, by the unpredictable ''
clinamen
Clinamen (; plural ''clinamina'', derived from ''clīnāre'', to incline) is the Latin name Lucretius gave to the unpredictable swerve of atoms, in order to defend the atomistic doctrine of Epicurus. In modern English it has come more generally t ...
'' of
Epicurus), and in
Stoic physics
Stoic physics refers to the natural philosophy of the Stoic philosophers of ancient Greece and Rome which they used to explain the natural processes at work in the universe. To the Stoics, the cosmos is a single pantheistic god, one which is ratio ...
, the ''
pneuma
''Pneuma'' () is an ancient Greek word for "breath", and in a religious context for " spirit" or "soul". It has various technical meanings for medical writers and philosophers of classical antiquity, particularly in regard to physiology, and is ...
'' assumed the role of ''
logos
''Logos'' (, ; grc, λόγος, lógos, lit=word, discourse, or reason) is a term used in Western philosophy, psychology and rhetoric and refers to the appeal to reason that relies on logic or reason, inductive and deductive reasoning. Ari ...
''.
Galen
Aelius Galenus or Claudius Galenus ( el, Κλαύδιος Γαληνός; September 129 – c. AD 216), often Anglicized as Galen () or Galen of Pergamon, was a Greek physician, surgeon and philosopher in the Roman Empire. Considered to be one ...
believed the lungs draw ''pneuma'' from the air, which the blood communicates throughout the body.
Medieval
In Europe, medieval physics was influenced by the idea of ''pneuma'', helping to shape later
aether theories
In physics, aether theories (also known as ether theories) propose the existence of a medium, a space-filling substance or field as a transmission medium for the propagation of electromagnetic or gravitational forces. Since the development of spe ...
.
Early modern
Vitalists included English anatomist
Francis Glisson
Francis Glisson (1597 – 14 October 1677Guido Giglioni'Glisson, Francis (1599?–1677)' ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'', Oxford University Press, Sept 2004; online edn, May 2006, accessed 31 December 2008) was a British physicia ...
(1597–1677) and the Italian doctor
Marcello Malpighi
Marcello Malpighi (10 March 1628 – 30 November 1694) was an Italian biologist and physician, who is referred to as the "Founder of microscopical anatomy, histology & Father of physiology and embryology". Malpighi's name is borne by several ph ...
(1628–1694).
Caspar Friedrich Wolff
Caspar Friedrich Wolff (18 January 1733 – 22 February 1794) was a German physiologist and one of the founders of embryology.
Life
Wolff was born in Berlin, Brandenburg. In 1759 he graduated as an M.D. from the University of Halle with his diss ...
(1733–1794) is considered to be the father of
epigenesis in
embryology
Embryology (from Greek ἔμβρυον, ''embryon'', "the unborn, embryo"; and -λογία, ''-logia'') is the branch of animal biology that studies the prenatal development of gametes (sex cells), fertilization, and development of embryos ...
, that is, he marks the point when embryonic development began to be described in terms of the proliferation of cells rather than the incarnation of a preformed soul. However, this degree of empirical observation was not matched by a mechanistic philosophy: in his ''
Theoria Generationis'' (1759), he tried to explain the emergence of the organism by the actions of a ''vis essentialis'' (an organizing, formative force), stating "All believers in epigenesis are vitalists."
Carl Reichenbach
Carl Ludwig von Reichenbach (full name: Karl Ludwig Freiherr von Reichenbach; February 12, 1788January 1869) was a German chemist, geologist, metallurgist, naturalist, industrialist and philosopher, and a member of the Prussian Academy of Scienc ...
(1788–1869) later developed the theory of
Odic force
The Odic force (also called Od d Odyle, Önd, Odes, Odylic, Odyllic, or Odems) is the name given in the mid-19th century to a hypothetical vital energy or life force by Baron Carl von Reichenbach. Von Reichenbach coined the name from that of ...
, a form of life-energy that permeates living things.
In the 17th century, modern science responded to
Newton's
action at a distance
In physics, action at a distance is the concept that an object can be affected without being physically touched (as in mechanical contact) by another object. That is, it is the non-local interaction of objects that are separated in space.
Non- ...
and the mechanism of
Cartesian dualism Cartesian means of or relating to the French philosopher René Descartes—from his Latinized name ''Cartesius''. It may refer to:
Mathematics
* Cartesian closed category, a closed category in category theory
*Cartesian coordinate system, moder ...
with vitalist theories: that whereas the chemical transformations undergone by non-living substances are reversible, so-called "organic" matter is permanently altered by chemical transformations (such as cooking).
[
As worded by ]Charles Birch
Louis Charles Birch (1918–2009) was an Australian geneticist specialising in population ecology and was also well known as a theologian, writing widely on the topic of science and religion, winning the Templeton Prize in 1990. The prize recogn ...
and John B. Cobb, "the claims of the vitalists came to the fore again" in the 18th century: "Georg Ernst Stahl
Georg Ernst Stahl (22 October 1659 – 24 May 1734) was a German chemist, physician and philosopher. He was a supporter of vitalism, and until the late 18th century his works on phlogiston were accepted as an explanation for chemical processes.K ...
's followers were active as were others, such as the physician genius Francis Xavier Bichat of the Hotel Dieu." However, "Bichat moved from the tendency typical of the French vitalistic tradition to progressively free himself from metaphysics
Metaphysics is the branch of philosophy that studies the fundamental nature of reality, the first principles of being, identity and change, space and time, causality, necessity, and possibility. It includes questions about the nature of conscio ...
in order to combine with hypotheses and theories which accorded to the scientific criteria of physics and chemistry." John Hunter recognised "a 'living principle' in addition to mechanics."
Johann Friedrich Blumenbach
Johann Friedrich Blumenbach (11 May 1752 – 22 January 1840) was a German physician, naturalist, physiologist, and anthropologist. He is considered to be a main founder of zoology and anthropology as comparative, scientific disciplines. He ...
was influential in establishing epigenesis in the life sciences in 1781 with his publication of ''Über den Bildungstrieb und das Zeugungsgeschäfte''. Blumenbach cut up freshwater '' Hydra'' and established that the removed parts would regenerate. He inferred the presence of a "formative drive" (''Bildungstrieb'') in living matter. But he pointed out that this name,
19th century
Jöns Jakob Berzelius
Jöns is a Swedish given name and a surname.
Notable people with the given name include:
* Jöns Jacob Berzelius (1779–1848), Swedish chemist
* Jöns Budde (1435–1495), Franciscan friar from the Brigittine monastery in NaantaliVallis Grati ...
, one of the early 19th century founders of modern chemistry, argued that a regulative force must exist within living matter to maintain its functions.[Ede, Andrew. (2007) ''The Rise and Decline of Colloid Science in North America, 1900–1935: The Neglected Dimension'', p. 23] Berzelius contended that compounds could be distinguished by whether they required any organisms in their synthesis (organic compounds
In chemistry, organic compounds are generally any chemical compounds that contain carbon-hydrogen or carbon-carbon bonds. Due to carbon's ability to catenate (form chains with other carbon atoms), millions of organic compounds are known. The s ...
) or whether they did not (inorganic compounds
In chemistry, an inorganic compound is typically a chemical compound that lacks carbon–hydrogen bonds, that is, a compound that is not an organic compound. The study of inorganic compounds is a subfield of chemistry known as '' inorganic chemi ...
). Vitalist chemists predicted that organic materials could not be synthesized from inorganic components, but Friedrich Wöhler synthesised urea
Urea, also known as carbamide, is an organic compound with chemical formula . This amide has two amino groups (–) joined by a carbonyl functional group (–C(=O)–). It is thus the simplest amide of carbamic acid.
Urea serves an important ...
from inorganic components in 1828. However, contemporary accounts do not support the common belief that vitalism died when Wöhler made urea. This ''Wöhler Myth'', as historian Peter Ramberg called it, originated from a popular history of chemistry published in 1931, which, "ignoring all pretense of historical accuracy, turned Wöhler into a crusader who made attempt after attempt to synthesize a natural product that would refute vitalism and lift the veil of ignorance, until 'one afternoon the miracle happened'".
Between 1833 and 1844, Johannes Peter Müller wrote a book on physiology
Physiology (; ) is the scientific study of functions and mechanisms in a living system. As a sub-discipline of biology, physiology focuses on how organisms, organ systems, individual organs, cells, and biomolecules carry out the chemical ...
called ''Handbuch der Physiologie'', which became the leading textbook in the field for much of the nineteenth century. The book showed Müller's commitments to vitalism; he questioned why organic matter differs from inorganic, then proceeded to chemical analyses of the blood and lymph. He describes in detail the circulatory, lymphatic, respiratory, digestive, endocrine, nervous, and sensory systems in a wide variety of animals but explains that the presence of a soul
In many religious and philosophical traditions, there is a belief that a soul is "the immaterial aspect or essence of a human being".
Etymology
The Modern English noun '' soul'' is derived from Old English ''sāwol, sāwel''. The earliest atte ...
makes each organism an indivisible whole. He claimed that the behaviour of light and sound waves showed that living organisms possessed a life-energy for which physical laws could never fully account.
Louis Pasteur (1822–1895) after his famous rebuttal of spontaneous generation
Spontaneous generation is a superseded scientific theory that held that living creatures could arise from nonliving matter and that such processes were commonplace and regular. It was hypothesized that certain forms, such as fleas, could arise f ...
, performed several experiments that he felt supported vitalism. According to Bechtel, Pasteur "fitted fermentation into a more general programme describing special reactions that only occur in living organisms. These are irreducibly vital phenomena." Rejecting the claims of Berzelius, Liebig
Justus Freiherr von Liebig (12 May 1803 – 20 April 1873) was a German scientist who made major contributions to agricultural and biological chemistry, and is considered one of the principal founders of organic chemistry. As a professor at t ...
, Traube and others that fermentation resulted from chemical agents or catalysts within cells, Pasteur concluded that fermentation was a "vital action".[
]
20th century
Hans Driesch
Hans Adolf Eduard Driesch (28 October 1867 – 17 April 1941) was a German biologist and philosopher from Bad Kreuznach. He is most noted for his early experimental work in embryology and for his neo-vitalist philosophy of entelechy. He has also ...
(1867–1941) interpreted his experiments as showing that life is not run by physicochemical laws. His main argument was that when one cuts up an embryo after its first division or two, each part grows into a complete adult. Driesch's reputation as an experimental biologist deteriorated as a result of his vitalistic theories, which scientists have seen since his time as pseudoscience. Vitalism is a superseded scientific hypothesis, and the term is sometimes used as a pejorative
A pejorative or slur is a word or grammatical form expressing a negative or a disrespectful connotation, a low opinion, or a lack of respect toward someone or something. It is also used to express criticism, hostility, or disregard. Sometimes, a ...
epithet. Ernst Mayr (1904–2005) wrote:
Other vitalists included Johannes Reinke
Johannes Reinke (February 3, 1849 – February 25, 1931) was a German botanist and philosopher who was a native of Ziethen, Lauenburg. He is remembered for his research of benthic marine algae.
Academic background
Reinke studied botany with h ...
and Oscar Hertwig
Oscar Hertwig (21 April 1849 in Friedberg – 25 October 1922 in Berlin) was a German embryologist and zoologist known for his research in developmental biology and evolution. Hertwig is credited as the first man to observe sexual reproduction ...
. Reinke used the word ''neovitalism'' to describe his work, claiming that it would eventually be verified through experimentation, and that it was an improvement over the other vitalistic theories. The work of Reinke influenced Carl Jung
Carl Gustav Jung ( ; ; 26 July 1875 – 6 June 1961) was a Swiss psychiatrist and psychoanalyst who founded analytical psychology. Jung's work has been influential in the fields of psychiatry, anthropology, archaeology, literature, phi ...
.
John Scott Haldane adopted an anti-mechanist approach to biology and an idealist
In philosophy, the term idealism identifies and describes metaphysical perspectives which assert that reality is indistinguishable and inseparable from perception and understanding; that reality is a mental construct closely connected to id ...
philosophy early on in his career. Haldane saw his work as a vindication of his belief that teleology
Teleology (from and )Partridge, Eric. 1977''Origins: A Short Etymological Dictionary of Modern English'' London: Routledge, p. 4187. or finalityDubray, Charles. 2020 912Teleology" In ''The Catholic Encyclopedia'' 14. New York: Robert Appleton ...
was an essential concept in biology. His views became widely known with his first book ''Mechanism, life and personality'' in 1913.[Bowler, Peter J. Reconciling science and religion: the debate in early-twentieth-century Britain, 2001, pp. 168–169] Haldane borrowed arguments from the vitalists to use against mechanism; however, he was not a vitalist. Haldane treated the organism as fundamental to biology: "we perceive the organism as a self-regulating entity", "every effort to analyze it into components that can be reduced to a mechanical explanation violates this central experience". The work of Haldane was an influence on organicism
Organicism is the philosophical position that states that the universe and its various parts (including human societies) ought to be considered alive and naturally ordered, much like a living organism.Gilbert, S. F., and S. Sarkar. 2000. "Embrac ...
. Haldane stated that a purely mechanist interpretation could not account for the characteristics of life. Haldane wrote a number of books in which he attempted to show the invalidity of both vitalism and mechanist approaches to science. Haldane explained:
By 1931, biologists had "almost unanimously abandoned vitalism as an acknowledged belief."
Emergentism
Contemporary science and engineering sometimes describe emergent processes, in which the properties of a system cannot be fully described in terms of the properties of the constituents. This may be because the properties of the constituents are not fully understood, or because the interactions between the individual constituents are important for the behavior of the system.
Whether emergence should be grouped with traditional vitalist concepts is a matter of semantic controversy. According to Emmeche ''et al.'' (1997):
Mesmerism
A popular vitalist theory of the 18th century was " animal magnetism", in the theories of Franz Mesmer (1734–1815). However, the use of the (conventional) English term ''animal magnetism'' to translate Mesmer's magnétisme animal can be misleading for three reasons:
* Mesmer chose his term to clearly distinguish his variant of ''magnetic'' force from those referred to, at that time, as ''mineral magnetism'', ''cosmic magnetism'' and ''planetary magnetism''.
* Mesmer felt that this particular force/power only resided in the bodies of humans and animals.
* Mesmer chose the word "''animal''," for its root meaning (from Latin ''animus''="breath") specifically to identify his force as a quality that belonged to all creatures with breath; viz., the animate beings: humans and animals.
Mesmer's ideas became so influential that King Louis XVI
Louis XVI (''Louis-Auguste''; ; 23 August 175421 January 1793) was the last King of France before the fall of the monarchy during the French Revolution. He was referred to as ''Citizen Louis Capet'' during the four months just before he was ...
of France appointed two commissions to investigate mesmerism
Animal magnetism, also known as mesmerism, was a protoscientific theory developed by German doctor Franz Mesmer in the 18th century in relation to what he claimed to be an invisible natural force (''Lebensmagnetismus'') possessed by all liv ...
; one was led by Joseph-Ignace Guillotin
Joseph-Ignace Guillotin (; 28 May 1738 – 26 March 1814) was a French physician, politician, and freemason who proposed on 10 October 1789 the use of a device to carry out death penalties in France, as a less painful method of execution than e ...
, the other, led by Benjamin Franklin
Benjamin Franklin ( April 17, 1790) was an American polymath who was active as a writer, scientist, inventor, statesman, diplomat, printer, publisher, and political philosopher. Encyclopædia Britannica, Wood, 2021 Among the leading inte ...
, included Bailly and Lavoisier. The commissioners learned about Mesmeric theory, and saw its patients fall into fits and trance
Trance is a state of semi-consciousness in which a person is not self-aware and is either altogether unresponsive to external stimuli (but nevertheless capable of pursuing and realizing an aim) or is selectively responsive in following the dir ...
s. In Franklin's garden, a patient was led to each of five trees, one of which had been "mesmerized"; he hugged each in turn to receive the "vital fluid," but fainted at the foot of a 'wrong' one. At Lavoisier's house, four normal cups of water were held before a "sensitive" woman; the fourth produced convulsions, but she calmly swallowed the mesmerized contents of a fifth, believing it to be plain water. The commissioners concluded that "the fluid without imagination is powerless, whereas imagination without the fluid can produce the effects of the fluid."
Medical philosophies
Vitalism has a long history in medical
Medicine is the science and practice of caring for a patient, managing the diagnosis, prognosis, prevention, treatment, palliation of their injury or disease, and promoting their health. Medicine encompasses a variety of health care practic ...
philosophies: many traditional healing practices posited that disease results from some imbalance in vital forces. In the Western tradition founded by Hippocrates
Hippocrates of Kos (; grc-gre, Ἱπποκράτης ὁ Κῷος, Hippokrátēs ho Kôios; ), also known as Hippocrates II, was a Greek physician of the classical period who is considered one of the most outstanding figures in the history o ...
, these vital forces were associated with the four temperaments and humours
Humorism, the humoral theory, or humoralism, was a system of medicine detailing a supposed makeup and workings of the human body, adopted by Ancient Greek and Roman physicians and philosophers.
Humorism began to fall out of favor in the 1850s ...
; Eastern traditions posited an imbalance or blocking of qi or prana. One example of a similar notion in Africa is the Yoruba concept of ase
Ase may refer to:
* Ase, Nigeria, a town in Delta State, Nigeria
* -ase, a suffix used for the names of enzymes
* Aṣẹ, a West African philosophical concept
* American Sign Language (ISO 639-3 code: ase)
See also
* Åse (disambiguation)
* ...
. Today forms of vitalism continue to exist as philosophical positions or as tenets in some religious traditions.
Complementary and alternative medicine
Alternative medicine is any practice that aims to achieve the healing effects of medicine despite lacking biological plausibility, testability, repeatability, or evidence from clinical trials. Complementary medicine (CM), complementary and al ...
therapies include energy therapies, associated with vitalism, especially biofield therapies such as therapeutic touch
Therapeutic touch (commonly shortened to "TT"), known by some as "non-contact therapeutic touch" (NCTT), is a pseudoscientific energy therapy which practitioners claim promotes healing and reduces pain and anxiety. "Therapeutic Touch" is a regi ...
, Reiki
is a Japanese form of energy healing, a type of alternative medicine. Reiki practitioners use a technique called ''palm healing'' or ''hands-on healing'' through which a " universal energy" is said to be transferred through the palms of the ...
, external qi, chakra healing and SHEN therapy.[Rubik, ''Bioenergetic Medicines'', American Medical Student Association Foundation, viewed 28 November 2006, ] In these therapies, the " subtle energy" field of a patient is manipulated by a practitioner. The subtle energy is held to exist beyond the electromagnetic energy produced by the heart and brain. Beverly Rubik describes the biofield as a "complex, dynamic, extremely weak EM field within and around the human body...."
The founder of homeopathy, Samuel Hahnemann
Christian Friedrich Samuel Hahnemann (; 10 April 1755 – 2 July 1843) was a German physician, best known for creating the pseudoscientific system of alternative medicine called homeopathy.
Early life
Christian Friedrich Samuel Hahnemann was ...
, promoted an immaterial, vitalistic view of disease: "...they are solely spirit-like (dynamic) derangements of the spirit-like power (the vital principle) that animates the human body." The view of disease as a dynamic disturbance of the immaterial and dynamic vital force is taught in many homeopathic colleges and constitutes a fundamental principle for many contemporary practising homeopaths.
Criticism
Vitalism has sometimes been criticized as begging the question by inventing a name. Molière
Jean-Baptiste Poquelin (, ; 15 January 1622 (baptised) – 17 February 1673), known by his stage name Molière (, , ), was a French playwright, actor, and poet, widely regarded as one of the greatest writers in the French language and worl ...
had famously parodied this fallacy in ''Le Malade imaginaire
''The Imaginary Invalid'', ''The Hypochondriac'', or ''The Would-Be Invalid'' (French title ''Le Malade imaginaire'', ) is a three- act ''comédie-ballet'' by the French playwright Molière with dance sequences and musical interludes (H.495, H.49 ...
'', where a quack "answers" the question of "Why does opium cause sleep?" with "Because of its dormitive virtue (i.e., soporific
Hypnotic (from Greek ''Hypnos'', sleep), or soporific drugs, commonly known as sleeping pills, are a class of (and umbrella term for) psychoactive drugs whose primary function is to induce sleep (or surgical anesthesiaWhen used in anesthesia ...
power)."['' Mihi a docto doctore / Demandatur causam et rationem quare / Opium facit dormire. / A quoi respondeo, / Quia est in eo / Vertus dormitiva, / Cujus est natura / Sensus assoupire.']
Le Malade imaginaire, (French Wikisource)
/ref> Thomas Henry Huxley
Thomas Henry Huxley (4 May 1825 – 29 June 1895) was an English biologist and anthropologist specialising in comparative anatomy. He has become known as "Darwin's Bulldog" for his advocacy of Charles Darwin's theory of evolution.
The stori ...
compared vitalism to stating that water is the way it is because of its "aquosity".[The Physical Basis of Life](_blank)
''Pall Mall Gazette'', 1869 His grandson Julian Huxley in 1926 compared "vital force" or ''élan vital'' to explaining a railroad locomotive's operation by its ''élan locomotif'' ("locomotive force").
Another criticism is that vitalists have failed to rule out mechanistic explanations. This is rather obvious in retrospect for organic chemistry
Organic chemistry is a subdiscipline within chemistry involving the scientific study of the structure, properties, and reactions of organic compounds and organic materials, i.e., matter in its various forms that contain carbon atoms.Clayden, ...
and developmental biology, but the criticism goes back at least a century. In 1912, Jacques Loeb
Jacques Loeb (; ; April 7, 1859 – February 11, 1924) was a German-born American physiologist and biologist.
Biography
Jacques Loeb, firstborn son of a Jewish family from the German Eifel region, was educated at the universities of Berlin, Munic ...
published ''The Mechanistic Conception of Life'', in which he described experiments on how a sea urchin could have a pin for its father, as Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell, (18 May 1872 – 2 February 1970) was a British mathematician, philosopher, logician, and public intellectual. He had a considerable influence on mathematics, logic, set theory, linguistics, ...
put it (''Religion and Science''). He offered this challenge:
: "... we must either succeed in producing living matter artificially, or we must find the reasons why this is impossible." (pp. 5–6)
Loeb addressed vitalism more explicitly:
: "It is, therefore, unwarranted to continue the statement that in addition to the acceleration of oxidations the beginning of individual life is determined by the entrance of a metaphysical "life principle" into the egg; and that death is determined, aside from the cessation of oxidations, by the departure of this "principle" from the body. In the case of the evaporation of water we are satisfied with the explanation given by the kinetic theory of gases and do not demand that to repeat a well-known jest of Huxley the disappearance of the "aquosity" be also taken into consideration." (pp. 14–15)
Bechtel states that vitalism "is often viewed as unfalsifiable
Falsifiability is a standard of evaluation of scientific theories and hypotheses that was introduced by the Philosophy of science, philosopher of science Karl Popper in his book ''The Logic of Scientific Discovery'' (1934). He proposed it as t ...
, and therefore a pernicious metaphysical doctrine."[ For many scientists, "vitalist" theories were unsatisfactory "holding positions" on the pathway to mechanistic understanding. In 1967, Francis Crick, the co-discoverer of the structure of DNA, stated "And so to those of you who may be vitalists I would make this prophecy: what everyone believed yesterday, and you believe today, only cranks will believe tomorrow."][Crick, Francis (1967) ''Of Molecules and Men''; Great Minds Series Prometheus Books 2004, reviewe]
here
Crick's remark is cited and discussed in: Hein H (2004
Molecular biology vs. organicism: The enduring dispute between mechanism and vitalism.
''Synthese'' 20:238–253, who describes Crick's remark as "raising spectral red herrings".
While many vitalistic theories have in fact been falsified, notably Mesmerism, the pseudoscientific retention of untested and untestable theories continues to this day. Alan Sokal
Alan David Sokal (; born January 24, 1955) is an American professor of mathematics at University College London and professor emeritus of physics at New York University. He works in statistical mechanics and combinatorics. He is a critic of postmo ...
published an analysis of the wide acceptance among professional nurses of "scientific theories" of spiritual healing. (Pseudoscience and Postmodernism: Antagonists or Fellow-Travelers?).[Pseudoscience and Postmodernism: Antagonists or Fellow-Travelers? (pdf)](_blank)
/ref> Use of a technique called therapeutic touch
Therapeutic touch (commonly shortened to "TT"), known by some as "non-contact therapeutic touch" (NCTT), is a pseudoscientific energy therapy which practitioners claim promotes healing and reduces pain and anxiety. "Therapeutic Touch" is a regi ...
was especially reviewed by Sokal, who concluded, "nearly all the pseudoscientific systems to be examined in this essay are based philosophically on vitalism" and added that "Mainstream science has rejected vitalism since at least the 1930s, for a plethora of good reasons that have only become stronger with time."
Joseph C. Keating, Jr. discusses vitalism's past and present roles in chiropractic
Chiropractic is a form of alternative medicine concerned with the diagnosis, treatment and prevention of mechanical disorders of the musculoskeletal system, especially of the spine. It has esoteric origins and is based on several pseudosci ...
and calls vitalism "a form of bio-theology." He further explains that:
: "Vitalism is that rejected tradition in biology which proposes that life is sustained and explained by an unmeasurable, intelligent force or energy. The supposed effects of vitalism are the manifestations of life itself, which in turn are the basis for inferring the concept in the first place. This circular reasoning offers pseudo-explanation, and may deceive us into believing we have explained some aspect of biology when in fact we have only labeled our ignorance. 'Explaining an unknown (life) with an unknowable (Innate),' suggests chiropractor Joseph Donahue, 'is absurd'."
Keating views vitalism as incompatible with scientific thinking:
: "Chiropractors are not unique in recognizing a tendency and capacity for self-repair and auto-regulation of human physiology. But we surely stick out like a sore thumb among professions which claim to be scientifically based by our unrelenting commitment to vitalism. So long as we propound the 'One cause, one cure' rhetoric of Innate, we should expect to be met by ridicule from the wider health science community. Chiropractors can't have it both ways. Our theories cannot be both dogmatically held vitalistic constructs and be scientific at the same time. The purposiveness, consciousness and rigidity of the Palmers' Innate should be rejected."
Keating also mentions Skinner's viewpoint:
: "Vitalism has many faces and has sprung up in many areas of scientific inquiry. Psychologist B.F. Skinner, for example, pointed out the irrationality of attributing behavior to mental states and traits. Such 'mental way stations,' he argued, amount to excess theoretical baggage which fails to advance cause-and-effect explanations by substituting an unfathomable psychology of 'mind'."
According to Williams, " day, vitalism is one of the ideas that form the basis for many pseudoscientific health systems that claim that illnesses are caused by a disturbance or imbalance of the body's vital force." "Vitalists claim to be scientific, but in fact they reject the scientific method with its basic postulates of cause and effect and of provability. They often regard subjective experience to be more valid than objective material reality."
Victor Stenger states that the term "bioenergetics" "is applied in biochemistry to refer to the readily measurable exchanges of energy within organisms, and between organisms and the environment, which occur by normal physical and chemical processes. This is not, however, what the new vitalists have in mind. They imagine the bioenergetic field as a holistic living force that goes beyond reductionist physics and chemistry."
Such a field is sometimes explained as electromagnetic, though some advocates also make confused appeals to quantum physics. Joanne Stefanatos states that "The principles of energy medicine originate in quantum physics."[Stefanatos, J. 1997, ''Introduction to Bioenergetic Medicine'', Shoen, A.M. and S.G. Wynn, ''Complementary and Alternative Veterinary Medicine: Principles and Practices'', Mosby-Yearbook, Chicago.] Stenger offers several explanations as to why this line of reasoning may be misplaced. He explains that energy exists in discrete packets called quanta. Energy fields are composed of their component parts and so only exist when quanta are present. Therefore, energy fields are not holistic, but are rather a system of discrete parts that must obey the laws of physics. This also means that energy fields are not instantaneous. These facts of quantum physics place limitations on the infinite, continuous field that is used by some theorists to describe so-called "human energy fields".[Biley, Francis C. 2005, ''Unitary Health Care: Martha Rogers' Science of Unitary Human Beings'', University of Wales College of Medicine, viewed 30 November 2006, ] Stenger continues, explaining that the effects of EM forces have been measured by physicists as accurately as one part in a billion and there is yet to be any evidence that living organisms emit a unique field.
Vitalistic thinking has been identified in the naive biological theories of children: "Recent experimental results show that a majority of preschoolers tend to choose vitalistic explanations as most plausible. Vitalism, together with other forms of intermediate causality, constitute unique causal devices for naive biology as a core domain of thought."
See also
* Egregore
Egregore (also spelled egregor; , ) is an occult concept representing a non-physical entity that arises from the collective thoughts of a distinct group of people. Historically, the concept referred to angelic beings, or watchers, and the specif ...
* Energy (esotericism)
Proponents and practitioners of various esoteric forms of spirituality and alternative medicine refer to a variety of claimed experiences and phenomena as being due to "energy" or "force" that defy measurement and thus are distinguished from t ...
* Etheric body
In neo-Theosophy, the etheric body, ether-body, or æther body is the subtle body propounded in esoteric philosophies as the first or lowest layer in the human energy field or aura. The etheric body is said to be in immediate contact with the phy ...
* Georges Canguilhem
Georges Canguilhem (; ; 4 June 1904 – 11 September 1995) was a French philosopher and physician who specialized in epistemology and the philosophy of science (in particular, biology).
Life and work
Canguilhem entered the École Normale Supé ...
* Henri Bergson
* Holism in science Holism in science, holistic science, or methodological holism is an approach to research that emphasizes the study of complex systems. Systems are approached as coherent wholes whose component parts are best understood in context and in relation to ...
* Homeopathy
* Irreducible complexity
Irreducible complexity (IC) is the argument that certain biological systems with multiple interacting parts would not function if one of the parts was removed, so supposedly could not have evolved by successive small modifications from earlier l ...
* ''Lebensphilosophie
(; meaning 'philosophy of life') was a dominant philosophical movement of German-speaking countries in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, which had developed out of German Romanticism. emphasised the meaning, value and purpose of life as ...
''
* Mind–body dualism
In the philosophy of mind, mind–body dualism denotes either the view that mental phenomena are non-physical, Hart, W. D. 1996. "Dualism." pp. 265–267 in ''A Companion to the Philosophy of Mind'', edited by S. Guttenplan. Oxford: Blackwell. ...
* Morphic resonance
Alfred Rupert Sheldrake (born 28 June 1942) is an English author and parapsychology researcher who proposed the concept of morphic resonance, a conjecture which lacks mainstream acceptance and has been criticized as pseudoscience. He has worke ...
* Odic force
The Odic force (also called Od d Odyle, Önd, Odes, Odylic, Odyllic, or Odems) is the name given in the mid-19th century to a hypothetical vital energy or life force by Baron Carl von Reichenbach. Von Reichenbach coined the name from that of ...
* Orenda
Orenda is the Iroquois name for a certain spiritual energy inherent in people and their environment. It is an "extraordinary invisible power believed by the Iroquois Native Americans to pervade in varying degrees in all animate and inanimate na ...
* Orgone
Orgone () is a pseudoscientific concept variously described as an esoteric energy or hypothetical universal life force. Originally proposed in the 1930s by Wilhelm Reich, and developed by Reich's student Charles Kelley after Reich's death in 1 ...
* Orthogenesis
Orthogenesis, also known as orthogenetic evolution, progressive evolution, evolutionary progress, or progressionism, is an obsolete biological hypothesis that organisms have an innate tendency to evolve in a definite direction towards some go ...
* Qi
* Ratiovitalism
* Royal Commission on Animal Magnetism
The Royal Commission on Animal Magnetism involved two entirely separate and independent French Royal Commissions, each appointed by Louis XVI in 1784, that were conducted simultaneously by a committee composed of four physicians from the Paris ...
* Vis medicatrix naturae
''Vis medicatrix naturae'' (literally "the healing power of nature", and also known as ''natura medica'') is the Latin rendering of the Greek ''Νόσων φύσεις ἰητροί'' ("Nature is the physician(s) of diseases"), a phrase attributed ...
* Vital materialism
* Vitality
Vitality (, , ) is the capacity to live, grow, or develop. More simply it is the property of having life. The perception of vitality is regarded as a basic psychological drive and, in philosophy, a component to the will to live. As such, peopl ...
Notes
References
Sources
*
*
External links
*
Vitalism
at the Skeptic's Dictionary
''The Skeptic's Dictionary'' is a collection of cross-referenced skeptical essays by Robert Todd Carroll, published on his website skepdic.com and in a printed book. The skepdic.com site was launched in 1994 and the book was published in 2003 wi ...
* For vital force and vitalism in the Spanish context, see Nicolás Fernández-Medina's
Life Embodied: The Promise of Vital Force in Spanish Modernity
' (McGill-Queen's UP, 2018).
{{philosophy of science
Consciousness–matter dualism
History of biology
Philosophy of science
Obsolete scientific theories
Pseudoscience
Emergence