MECHANISM AND
MEDICINE
Man as a Machine
Basic idea:
The cosmos is a “machine,” made up of small parts,
functioning mechanically
Each part has shape, size, quantity, and motion.
Motion is transferred, and maintained, in the universe by
contact between the constituent parts of that machine
Bodies are made up of very small parts, whether atoms or
corpuscles.
All regular activities within the cosmos can be seen in
terms of the interaction of these particles or the bodies
which they constitute.
DesCartes (1596-1650):
Matter is completely inert.
Motion is separate from matter
itself.
The world is completely full of
matter or particles.
Motion produces vortices of
resultant motion around
whatever is moving.
The amount of motion in the
universe is constant.
The Human body is a machine
of interacting physical
relationships.
“Mind” (or soul) is something
apart from the equation:
“mind-body dualism.”
Pierre Gassendi (1592-1655):
Matter is made of indivisible
parts called “atoms.”
All matter is endowed with a
principle of action or “force.”
Some atoms (at least) possessed
a “seminal power” or “internal
force” producing growth and
change.
More compatible with biology,
and theology than DesCartes
and Greek Atomism.
However, since “force” was
internal to matter, Gassendi
laid unintended foundations.
Pierre-Louis Maupertuis
Argued, by assuming Gassendi’s
principle that force is internal
in matter, that no outside
influence is needed for the
production of life.
Venus Physique published 1745.
This extended backward to the
original production of life out
of inert matter.
Mechanism, viewing life as a
machine, had become an
argument for an a-theistic
source of life (no need for God.)
Albrecht von Haller (1708-77):
Maupertuis was reflecting a broader turn in
mechanism: at about the same time,Georges-Louis
Leclerc de Buffon, and John Needham had
postulated “spontaneous generation” as the origin of
life.
However, there was much that strictly mechanical
forces did not, seemingly, explain.
Albrecht von Haller, a Swiss anatomist, argued that
the principles of life may be inherent in matter, but
the pattern, or formation (formal cause?) was to be
found outside.
He also contended that there were two tendencies
in the human body which demonstrated the
existence of a coherent “life force” (the human soul)
apart from mechanical principles:
“Irritability” located in the muscles and relating
to contraction.
“Sensibility” relating to sensation and located in
the “nerves.”
Julien de la Mettrie (1709-51):
“Materialist” – all causes can be found in
matter itself.
Argued that Haller’s principles of
Irritability and Sensibility were merely
the mechanical reactions of the body.
Dedicated his book, L’homme Machine
(Man, a Machine, 1747) to Haller.
The trap of mechanism was that
attributing forces to matter itself implied
(or permitted) a rejection of causes apart
#om matter.
The rise in studies of electricity
(increasingly seen as a lifeless, mechanical
force) accelerated this tendency.
(And gave us the life principle of
“Frankenstein.”)
Significance of Mechanism:
Introduces the potential for confining causes within the observable
cosmos.
Where one located causes was largely a matter of belief (one could
accept or reject formal and teliological causes. Mechanism permitted
the rejection.)
Marks “a definite break with the past and sets the seal on the
scientific revolution.” (John Henry)
A phenomenon largely of the mid to end of the 17th c. which
dominates until the 20th c.
Adoption is slow, older trends linger.
Consequently, produces our modern tendency to speak of “Scientific
Explanations”, rather than “supernatural.”
Sets the stage for the rise of “atheist systems” and later, atheism.
In medicine, it encourages a consideration of internal causes of life
and disease, as well as a meticulous study of the parts of the human
“machine.”
The Enlightenment
Another “Age of Light”
An age of light: the triumph of the “rational:”
In the Renaissance, Petrarch developed the concept of a “dark age” of
ignorance and barbarism which preceded his own era, marked by the
return of the light of knowledge and civilization. For Renaissance
thinkers the Light which was returning was the civilization of classical
Greece and Rome, and the original form of Christianity.
As with the Renaissance, the Enlightenment was an era which defined
itself: Intellectuals believed that the world (meaning all of Europe) was
entering a new age of light after darkness.
The “Light” of the Enlightenment was “human reason.”
The “Enlightenment,” then, refers to a change in attitude.
What was being left behind, in the minds of the self-identified
Enlightenment intellectuals was all that was irrational or
“superstitious” (including “irrational”” forms of religion.)
What was developing, according to these intellectuals was a rational
and systematic approach to the world and human knowledge.
By the end of the Enlightenment, the term “science” was in common use
and we can see the emergence of the “scientific” world view, in which
all things had to be demonstrable to reason and the senses to be
“believed.”
Enlightenment View of History
ancient
medieval
stagnation
Ascent of man
Or fall
Renaissance and
Scientific Revolution
Modern
Enlightenment
Triumph of Human Reason
The Enlightenment is seen as the dawn of a final epoch, in which
human reason triumphs over the irrational elements which held man
back and subjected his fate to the whim of nature and superstition.
Pre-History of the Enlightenment
The Intellectual trend of the seventeenth century had had been toward a
systematization of thought in regard to nature and the study of nature.
Newton fused the Baconian tendency of looking for natures laws in
observable phenomena and experimentation, with DesCartes’ tendency to
explain the Universe mathematically, as a single predictable system.
Now the universe could be said to operate according to set laws which were
both observable and mathematically consistent.
Newton is one example of a broader trend that included others such as
Leibniz, and Hooke in regard to natural philosophy, Locke and Hobbes in
regard to politics, and Spinoza and Locke (again) in regard to metaphysics
and religion.
Everywhere, to those who observed from a distance, the subjects of human
inquiry were being systematized and improved by the light of reason.
The big names of “science” and philosophy in the seventeenth century
become celebrated as the sources of a new age when their ideas become
popular in the eighteenth century.
The Enlightenment is best seen as the eighteenth century development of
these intellectual trends.
Key Features of the
Enlightenment
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
Faith in the “scientific method,” or the “Rules of
Reason,” as the means to establish “truth.”
The belief in “progress” as an axiom of modern history.
Belief that the “scientific method” could be applied to all
aspects of intellectual activity (including society and
morals.)
Skepticism in regard to the claims of religion (especially
in light of the religious wars of the seventeenth century.)
A popularization of “science” and philosophy among the
growing “bourgeoisie” or middle class, as more and more
people became literate.
The shared goal of a triumph over nature by human
achievement.
Religious Skepticism
One of the most widely-recognized features of the Enlightenment (largely because of
the Christian reaction against it.)
It was a (rather visceral) reaction to the perceived failure of religion in the seventeenth
century wars.
It was also the result of the ability to construct a model of the universe based upon
natural law.
By the first years of the nineteenth century, Pierre Laplace could boldly say that he had
no need of the “hypothesis of God” in his astronomy.
It is also one of the features of the Enlightenment most overstated by later generations.
There were few genuine “atheists” produced by the Enlightenment, but a legion of
deists and agnostics. As David Hume said, he was “too skeptical to be an atheist.”
It is important to remember that having issues with received religion does not imply a
rejection of the idea that religion is good and necessary in society.
Whatever religion there was, however, it would be best if it were “rational,” meaning
subjected to human reason and not merely its own claims of authority.
In England, this meant the development of Unitarianism (keep this in mind as we
study Darwin and Victorian England.)
Immanuel Kant and the Place for Faith
Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) Prussian philosopher of the
Enlightenment, lived his whole life within a few miles of
the city of Koenigsberg. Deist.
Among his vast contributions to the development of
philosophy, Kant drew what became a very popular line
between that which can be subjected to human reason
(the realm of the phenomenal) and that which is the stuff
of meditation beyond the sphere of experience (the
noumenal).
In so doing, Kant was consciously following a distinction
used in the seventeenth century, by Robert Boyle and
others of the English Royal Society.
Kant’s philosophy pitched this idea in a new key -- not
merely stating that there is a difference between the
knowable and the transcendent, but also establishing a
valid place for both science and religion in light of
Enlightenment skepticism.
Kant’s position was more typical of Enlightenment
thought than outright atheism.
The Popularizers: First Example
Bernard de Fontenelle’s Conversations on the Plurality of
Worlds. (1686)
Set as a casual conversation between a man and a woman in
which the man explains, in simple terms, the significance of
the recent developments in astronomy leading to the
triumph of the Copernican Theory.
Typical Quotation: “There came on the scene…one
Copernicus, who made short work of all those various
circles, all those solid skies, which the ancients had pictured
to themselves…. Fired with the noble zeal of a true
astronomer, he took the earth and spun it very far away
from the center of the universe, where it had been installed,
and in that center he put the sun, which had a far better title
to that honor.”
Raised the tantalizing question: If the planets are other
worlds like our own, might they not have life like ours?
(That one had legs.)
A good example of how accurate history, and scientific
theory itself, can suffer when it is subjected to a marketing
strategy.
The Popularizers: Second Example
The Encyclopedia: The Rational Dictionary of the Sciences, the
Arts, and the Crafts (1751-72)
Edited by Denis Diderot and Jean d’Alembert.
An ongoing project to place the advances in science,
technology, and learning in ready reach of a literate public.
Sought to be comprehensive.
Had the open goal of destroying error and “superstition.”
The editors marshaled serious scholars and experts in all fields
to contribute.
Represents a much more responsible approach to the topics
than Fontenelle.
However: Reading the Encyclopedia reveals a great deal less
unity than its architects had hoped. What is rational for one
author is absurd for the next.
Had another nasty side effect of giving the impression that
knowledge was finite and could be contained.
Eventually the additions to, and revisions of, the encyclopedie
overbalanced the project: At more than 66 volumes in its final
edition, the attempt to catalog all human knowledge collapsed
under its own weight.
The Professionals: Science becomes
Specialized
The Enlightenment also saw tremendous advances in
every area of natural philosophy.
The natural philosopher grew in social status, and
Scientific societies such as the English Royal Society and
the French Royal Academy became prestigious
institutions with paid research staff.
The sciences also began dividing from the blanket
“natural philosophy” into the modern categories:
physics, chemistry, astronomy, biology, etc.
Along with specialization came specialists, experts who
devoted themselves to advancing one area, and were
often hired by the societies or universities based on their
areas of expertise.
Example in Life Science: Linnaeus
Linnaeus (1707-1789) Swedish Naturalist,
developed the modern binomial (genus,
species) method of taxonomical listing.
Promoted the modern taxonomical
distinctions based upon reproductive
organs in plants.
Adherent of “natural theology” the study of
God through nature.
Using reason, all of nature could be turned
to practical ends, according to Linnaeus.
Advocated practical (?) revolutions in
farming such as the domestication of
reindeer as a food source, along with guinea
pigs (“slaughtered, shaved, and fried”) and
the replacement of horses with moose in
Sweden.
Example in Chemistry: Lavoisier
1743-1794 “Father of Modern Chemistry”
Advanced work on a gas which he named “oxygen.”
Experiments with combustion proved that burning
is a process combining a substance with oxygen.
Oxidation, likewise, combined a prior substance
with this gas.
Also demonstrated that respiration in plants and
animals requires oxygen, and can be likened to
combustion.
Advanced the production of saltpeter and
gunpowder, for the use of the state.
Worked as a team with his wife, Marie-Anne.
Although not a royalist, he was arrested, tried and
guillotined by the Revolution on May 8, 1794.
According to the judge: “The Republic has no need
of geniuses.”