Skip Navigation


Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences Advance Access originally published online on June 18, 2007
Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences 2007 62(4):495-528; doi:10.1093/jhmas/jrm015
This Article
Right arrow Full Text
Right arrow Full Text (PDF)
Right arrow All Versions of this Article:
62/4/495    most recent
jrm015v1
Right arrow Alert me when this article is cited
Right arrow Alert me if a correction is posted
Services
Right arrow Email this article to a friend
Right arrow Similar articles in this journal
Right arrow Similar articles in ISI Web of Science
Right arrow Similar articles in PubMed
Right arrow Alert me to new issues of the journal
Right arrow Add to My Personal Archive
Right arrow Download to citation manager
Right arrowRequest Permissions
Google Scholar
Right arrow Articles by Normandin, S.
Right arrow Search for Related Content
PubMed
Right arrow PubMed Citation
Right arrow Articles by Normandin, S.
Social Bookmarking
Add to CiteULike   Add to Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us  
What's this?

© The Author 2007. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org

Claude Bernard and An Introduction to the Study of Experimental Medicine: "Physical Vitalism," Dialectic, and Epistemology

Sebastian Normandin*

Correspondence: * Sebastian Normandin, Ph.D., University Canada West, 950 Kings Road, Victoria, BC V8T 1W6 Email: vitaliste{at}hotmail.com. This research was supported through a McGill University Graduate Studies Fellowship


  Abstract

This article explores the profound impact of the thought of Claude Bernard (1813–78) and his philosophy of experimentalism elaborated in his masterwork An Introduction to the Study of Experimental Medicine. I argue that Bernard's far-ranging theoretical impact on medicine and biology marks the end of conventional vitalism and the elusive notion of a "vital force" as a legitimate scientific concept. His understanding of medicine is as epistemologically significant in its time as Newton's contribution was to the physical sciences in the seventeenth century. This essay treats Bernard's philosophical ambitions seriously, exploring his important, even central, role in the mental world of nineteenth-century France. This includes his influence on Henri Bergson (1859–1941) and other late-nineteenth century thinkers. The subtext of Bernard's experimental epistemology is also contrasted with a key idealist philosopher of the period, the German Arthur Schopenhauer (1788–1860), and placed in the context of the larger European philosophical sphere. In contrast to much of mid-nineteenth-century philosophy, Bernard, in creating the framework for experimental medicine, argued for an experimental approach in which a priori assumptions were to be strictly constrained. Bernard's thoughts on the nature of experiment put an end to "systems" in medicine, ironically by replacing all previous medical philosophies with the all-embracing "system" of experiment. And yet, while "vital forces" fade after Bernard, a form of vitalism still flourishes. Even in Bernard's own work, in the struggle with concepts like determinism, complexity, and causality, there is a realization of the unique character of living function in a kind of "physical vitalism."

Key Words: Claude Bernard • experimental medicine • vitalism • vital force • science • epistemology • nineteenth-century French philosophy


Add to CiteULike CiteULike   Add to Connotea Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us Del.icio.us    What's this?




Disclaimer:
Please note that abstracts for content published before 1996 were created through digital scanning and may therefore not exactly replicate the text of the original print issues. All efforts have been made to ensure accuracy, but the Publisher will not be held responsible for any remaining inaccuracies. If you require any further clarification, please contact our Customer Services Department.