Does the History and Philosophy of Vitalism Contribute to Contemporary Debates in Biology on Definitions of Life?
The Historical Significance of Vitalism
Exploration into the nature of life and being has existed for millennia. The intelligent design argument of Socrates, or the teleological argument of Aristotle, are most notable in the Western philosophical tradition for such exploration into existence. Vitalism encapsulates people’s historical understanding of nature and life as a unique force. There have been various historical forms of vitalism, as well as various relationships between vitalism and mainstream science. The historical focus here will be on the early-middle modern period understandings of vitalism.
Well before the development of biology as a distinct natural science in the 19th century, the foundations of vitalism were born. The difficulty to comprehend conscious phenomena such as the embryogenesis of chicks, polyp’s ability to regenerate, Galvanism, etc., made way for metaphysical matters of nature’s creativity and organization to come forth — vitalism. Thus, a relationship between natural science and philosophy was created, forming alongside traditional biology as a domain of science.
Traditional biology and all that it encompasses, was once heavily unstable until the early 19th century. The terminology remained inconstant, playing between ‘bionomy’, ‘biogeography’, ‘general natural history’, and ‘general zoology’, as well as attempts to include the ‘art of living’, when understanding what the meaning of life truly is. It was then that biology became known as the science behind the development and functioning of living bodies. This includes pragmatic advances from a wide range of disciplines such as embryology, physiology, medicine, natural history and comparative anatomy. The evidence of biology having an epistemological unfolding is clear, in the need for biology to have been independently defined by many authors previously, from an array of backgrounds.
An interesting drawback to the mechanistic ideal of biology, is the difficulty to account for the processes of epigenetics. As Rene Descartes (1596–1650) heavily promoted mechanism for understanding the body, he admitted the inability to comprehend the body to the fullest extent; The generation processes, of the different parts of the human body and exactly how it all forms to unify as one body, one being. It is worth noting that, at first, it may seem fairly easy to explain the diverse fragments of a physical being, and how they all exist with their own form and function. Taking a reductionist approach and understanding to a living being, based upon the understanding of their biological function, pulling it apart is one thing. However, to actually comprehend the greater how of each organ, cell & molecule in the way they unify in a rhythmic flow to create that whole being, is an area that the likes of Descartes struggled to grasp and answer for themselves.
A stimulating argument contributing towards understanding life as a type of vitalism is Robert Boyle’s (1627–1691) argument of ‘corpuscularianism’. It is an apprehensible idea which takes both the physical fragment of existence into account, whilst acknowledging the vitalist nature of existence too. He explains that, the non-living and living are both arrangements of a universal matter that is singular, yet made of corpuscles. That is to say, that all of existence comes perhaps from even a particle of matter, as the most basic constituent. Boyle does not seek to align the premise of vitalism on a higher power necessarily, but more so to shed light on the possibility that a life, a piece of existence, is the result of a recombination and separation from another material corpuscle. The process of this recombination and separation, is seen as the process of vitalism.
The Leibniz-Clarke debate provided an interesting reflection on vitalism in the early 18th century. Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646–1716) alludes to the notion, that the body of an animal, man or insect is just as mechanical in nature, as the mechanics of a watch. However, the major difference between the man and watch, is that the existence of a man is an invention which carries divinity, a force that transcends the will of the limited artist who created the watch. He embodied the fact that when we seek to understand ‘unity’ and ‘oneness’ of a living species, we are referring to a soul-substance. This is where vitalism resides. Then, when we look at the mechanistic nature of a physical body, it is a secondary addition to the soul. The materiality, for example, of the human body is a secondary manifestation of a force which is the ‘deeper’ constitutional substance of all living beings. It is not that the principle of vitalism is seeking to degrade biology, rather, the explanations of biology for existence are also important phenomena themselves, though secondarily to this fundamental dynamism of the life-force.
Leibniz recognized organisms as ‘machines of nature’, meaning, that all living organisms are machines in the parts which are most minute. He made this distinction as a way to also draw a comparison to machines that are created by humans. The machines of nature are that which exist to infinity, implying the notion that there are seeds contained in bodies, which can never really be destroyed. As Leibniz used the specific term ‘organism’, he created a distinction in his works between an ‘organized body’, as opposed to a man-made machine. This also sheds further light on the idea that an essential feature to the living being, is self-regulating, self-maintained and autonomous. A simplistic example, is even to fathom a cut on a human finger. The body’s ability to heal the wound with time, is representative of this very self-containing nature.
Although Leibniz affiliated the organism of a living being to be a mechanism which is divine in nature, he professed to reject any mysterious, extra-causal forces of vitality to be involved in his definition of life. He did not allow for the idea that there could be a soul present with the holistic, as a motivational force to control the body. He insists that due to the law of the conservation of force, as well as mechanical laws, all of existence and living beings are here, as the very expression of Nature itself. Although he holds that Life does indeed stem for a source that is ontologically deeper than the level of mechanical Nature, he refutes the idea of the soul playing any part in this. Rather, existence is a divine expression that is self-organized & intelligent, just like an ecosystem.
Émilie Du Châtelet (1706–1749) contributes the idea that atoms of material substance, cannot be the concluding terminus of reality. More so, they are always motivated by immaterial, divine creations that carry a teleological purpose that have a perpetual force. She explains this by expanding on the idea that force in and of itself, is the very principle which has a worthy purpose for an action to actualize itself into reality. This is due to the fact that, the action of a material being to come about, has only occurred due to a passionate force to give it a sufficient reason for existence. Therefore, this force is the essence of all beings, and the reason for why the being even has a faculty of movement. For Châtelet, if one is to observe the changes which occur in living beings, this immaterial, divine life-force is essentially driving the changes. It will never leave the being, nor can it ever be extinguished. It is simply the dynamic, teleological force which permeates all beings.
In the emerging study of organic chemistry in 1828, the usage of vital forces to differentiate between the living and non-living on a molecular level was upheld. When chemical organic organization was questioned, the vital force appeared to be suitable and correct. In the history of cell research, there are as many vitalists as there are mechanists. The development in reflex theory can owe its progress more so to vitalists than to mechanists, from the 17th to the 19th century.
Approaching the late 20th century, the context of studies on vitalism reveal that even certain biological histories are mostly concerned with the self-organizing nature of existence. Specifically, the self-organizing wonder of humans, plants, and animals, individual components of a being come together for an experience of the organism that is relational, which cannot be reduced to a separatism, but interdependently operate to create a whole that is organised.
The Philosophical Significance of Vitalism
‘’the first aspect of vitalism that philosophical reflection is led to examine is, for us, the vitality of vitalism.’’ — Canguilhem.
Upon observing the fluctuations in existential arrangements across different species, as well as the marvelous creativity of nature, it isn’t difficult to fathom how historical contributions have asserted that the nature of life involves some sort of an innate, self-organizing capacity. The intersection between the mechanical and contemporary understandings of life versus the philosophy of vitalism, has historically posed significant metaphysical issues.
Descartes’s inability to explain this formation in a scientific, mechanistic, logical way, became notorious in the 18th century, as such, leaving further room for the clear possibility of vitalism to emerge as an answer, a ‘fill-in-the-gap’ to our understanding of defining life.
Such historical contributions, through the philosophical inquiry to understand the great how behind existence, convey that all actions of existence do indeed require a sufficient reasoning for its evolution to actualize into material reality. The vital life-force provides an ongoing propensity to drive action, which continues on so as long as there being no adequate reason for the action to not occur.
Thus, when it comes to understanding the validity of vitalism, one must reflect on the phenomena of life in all of its self-organizing behavioural patterns. For example, the ways in which animals are self-preserved, reproduce and unify in their herds, is a reality that cannot be explain purely with a mechanistic framework.
The part of life that is ‘alive’, ‘thriving’ and independently existing, can be driven by a vital life-force. Reducing existence to mere brute, physical matter, negates the characteristic of there being a miraculous underpinning, for how a being is actually alive. Seeking to decipher amongst the laws which govern the actions of all of life creation, reveals that the approach of reductionism carries a structural flaw. The physiques of plants and animals in their intelligent organization, is far too complicated to be understood mechanically. For example, the calculations of the laws of motion in an animal are innumerable.
It was seen that life-force actually provides purpose to all of existence. When atoms or other indivisible segments of matter are reduced to that of a biological lens, they carry no necessary reason for existing. The being becomes the end product of a random creation. However, when the forces of the universe with its laws and vitalist energetic properties are acknowledged, analyzing nature ceases at a specific point — because its force continues in its due course to allow physical matter to actualize.
Any serious discourse on vitalism requires a honorable mention of Henri Bergson (1859–1941). In his famous work, Creative Evolution, he discusses the interaction between life and knowledge. The central idea is that knowledge is produced by life, and then knowledge modifies life. For instance, biological knowledge is produced by people who carry the propensity to produce such knowledge, and then such knowledge modifies human life. Bergson’s notion of vitality refers to a powerful propensity permeating all living beings. This vitalism is not a unfathomable force that evades or denies science any value. Significantly, it alludes to a relationship between life and knowledge, or between human propensity and biological knowledge.
Georges Canguilhem (1904–95) was a philosopher and specialist in medicine, who had an enormous impact on the study of the history and philosophy of science. He accepts Bergson’s philosophy of vitalism, and contributed to the historical and philosophical understanding of vitalism, becoming truly worthy to be discussed for any modern mind.
Canguilhem discerns that any natural philosopher of the past, or as they are known today as scientists, share empathy toward nature; they do not consider nature to be a mysterious or unknown force. If anyone appreciates nature soulfully, attributing any kind of meaning to it, then this person is essentially a vitalist. The likes of Plato, Aristotle, Galen, the people of the Middle Ages and Renaissance, were vitalists. Today one might think of someone like the plant physiologist and theorist of consciousness, Monica Gagliano. The cosmos is conceived to be a system managed by laws and telos. They believed themselves to be a part of the totality of the cosmos; in other words, a single cell part of an organism.
Canguilhem describes the highly adaptable nature of living beings by its intelligence, and describes the technical activity of human character as ‘heteropoietic’. He narrates the situation of a man experimenting and experiencing his own biological activity. When expressing himself in his external surroundings, whether it is the habitat or in relation to other living beings, the self-awareness that is created in the man, is an organic and intelligible process. As mankind progresses, moves through different obstacles in its existence and makes errors, this activity which is organic and innate, continues on in its evolution. Such is the nature of man, as described by Canguilhem.
Canguilhem further suggests that, the organism in its totality and holism (rather than just a mixture of parts with a set of functions) responds to a specific environment it’s placed in, with all of its set challenges. The holistic nature that he describes, pertaining to the philosophy of vitalism, is essentially a response to a biology seeking to identify the phenomena of life by taking a more reductionist approach to a living organism. Canguilhem argues that it is not a particular part on the whole being that is responding to a possible threat in its space, rather, the whole being unifies with all the separate parts in communication with one another. The being exists as a whole throughout the course of its existence.
Furthermore, a living being is interpretive in its nature when it moves through the considerations of seeing themselves as a vital fragment of an organism, carrying a purpose just as much as other living beings. This depicts the necessary inclination of living organisms to be immersed with other organisms in full interaction, in order to recognize themselves. It is worth noting that what Canguilhem is describing, rings a tone of existentialism. In alignment with his point, there is a common understanding that the inherent need for normativity in living beings, is an authority governing the nature of living beings. What is being addressed here is a concept that would otherwise be seen as nothing particularly profound, but when explored in more detail, it is clear to see that biological science is not able to explain why a living being is able to wisely recognize itself among other living beings, or why a living being becomes so quickly adaptable to its external surroundings. This vitalist underpinning contributed by Canguilhem is enigmatic, urging us to contemplate deeper on the patterns of behaviour among living organisms.
This perspective of vitalism is unique in the way that it draws on the fundamental methods by which an organism not only is created, but also, the way it is designed to react in its habitual environment. The inherent behaviors of social cohesion and the ability to survive, whether the evidence is in the animal kingdom or human society, the ability for each respective set of species to integrate, interpret one another and recognize the self by way of its own vital instinct, is absolutely miraculous. This is a unique characteristic of existence which indeed, cannot be measured by a biological framework of logic and mechanism. There is much more to understanding the nature of life, which is impossible to measure through biological science alone. The phenomena outlined above, pertains to the philosophies of vitalism which, although cannot be measured, provide a more holistic understanding of the way that existence not only survives, but also thrives.
Vitalism in Contemporary Debates on Definitions of Life
Vitalism has long been looked down upon in modern biology; it’s been seen as an appeal to a mysterious life-force, a romanticization of the living organism, or as mystical metaphysical speculation. Vitalism is viewed in contrast to the causality and experimentation of biological science.
It’s safe to say that the consideration of defining life was glanced over in biology from the 1960s until the 1990s. Perhaps due to groundbreaking developments in molecular biology, it became either explicit or implicit in the minds of biologists that the true nature of life is revealed in the gene as information or code. However, the question of the nature of life re-emerged in the 1990s with the development of evolutionary biology and inquiry into artificial life.
It first may appear that vitalism has continuously been confronted and threatened by developments in chemistry, and within biology itself, bringing about the possibility to reduce biological processes to mere physical and chemical reactions. For example, in recent decades the success of synthetic biology poses a challenge vitalists.
Despite physics and chemistry converging on the same laws governing their phenomena, Canguilhem reminds us that there is a significant difference between physical-chemical laws and the laws governing organized bodies. Therefore, to inquire into a definition of life, one must be weary of the challenges posed by reductionism, as well as the laws in biology.
As has been shown in our historical and philosophical analyses of vitalism, there have been different historical conceptual forms of vitalism, as well as different relationships between vitalism and the mainstream practices of science. Furthermore, within recent biological science, there have been some tendencies to move away from genetic reductionism and informational models of the gene. These movements consider themselves under the banner of organicism: a popular concept in theoretical biology and the philosophy of biology in the early 20th century, seeking to explain laws or properties in relation to organic life — with as little metaphysical baggage as much as possible.
Importantly, there has been pushback against reductionist understandings in biology about the nature of life, even amongst those who want to preserve scientific empiricism. When it comes to the entelechy, which is the supposed vital principle that guides the development and functioning of an organism, a reduction to physics and chemistry is practically impossible. For the biologist and philosopher, Hans Driesch (1867–1941), the entelechy is invisible and inaccessible to empirical investigation. Vitalism, too, asserts the existence of entelechies that govern an organism. If physicists are confident enough to affirm that the quark exists, then biologists should be permitted to do the same with entelechy. The physicist and logical-positivist, Phillipp Frank (1884–1966), said that when Driesch introduced the entelechy into biology, this “certainly means going beyond the frame of physical laws, but in no way an abandonment of the ground of empirical science”.
Frank understood that when formulating hypotheses, how important it is that scientists should be impartial towards materialist and vitalist concepts. For instance, from the empiricist perspective, the presupposition of the atom should be seen as legitimate as entelechy. According to this view, it would be erroneous to reject vitalism and relegate it to metaphysical heresy because it goes beyond physicalism. Therefore, legitimate hypotheses may be made on the grounds of materialist and vitalist concepts, and their validity to be later determined on the grounds of empirical evidence.
Furthermore, if we are to recall Karl Popper’s philosophy of science, it would seem biology does not aim at all to gain knowledge of life’s essences — fixed definitions of life. Rather, biology hypothesizes and tests human behaviour in order to reach explanations for that behaviour, utilizing hypothetical universal laws and definitions. This would entail that the conceptual definition of life is not a scientific concern, since it lacks empirical grounding.
French philosopher, Jean Gayon, posits that the incommensurability of a definition of life is anchored deep in the sea of history. Gayon argues the reason why the term ‘biology’ triumphed in the 19th century is because of the development of general theories regarding all phenomena that have always intuitively been thought of as life. Biological sub-fields such as physiology, zoology, and evolutionary theory never pursued to define life, however, through studies in each of their respective fields, they derived theories about life. Therefore, Gayon cautions, any definitions they gave about life can only be relative to each theory and can indeed change. The same applies for scientists and biologists today.
A definition is a structuring of words, other than the word itself, aiming to encapsulate the universal meaning of a particular word being defined. A definition is an attempt at universality and essence. Definitions in the biological sciences use operational criteria for the thing trying to be defined; it’s more like a set of properties that a thing has, waiting to be actualized. For example, NASA’s ‘’definition’’ of life is “a self-sustained chemical system capable of undergoing Darwinian evolution”. Since this attempt is merely providing operational criteria, it cannot be considered a definition.
Canguilhem’s analyses of various forms of vitalism are not merely historical, they enter into the philosophical. For Canguilhem, vitalism cannot be associated with any specific scientific or biological theory, nor can it define life using a set of properties — much like relative and operational definitions outlined above. Canguilhem had no intention to defend vitalism from a scientific perspective. His concern is philosophical in nature. Therefore, it is incumbent that the relation between life and science remains open: it should be a concern for the philosophy of science and biology to engage in the pursuit of the definition of life.
Canguilhem’s vitalist views dispute the idea that biological knowledge of life present a challenge for definitions of life outside biology. This is due to the fact that a biological perspective of existence considers existence and all of living beings as mechanical. Biology seeks to provide the knowledge that is required for the operation of an organism. However, Canguilhem contends that it cannot grasp the essence of life to the fullest extent. Although it is apparent that the definition of life will be most considered plausible via analysis, he contends that the miracle of life and existence isn’t just something that can be analyzed through a set of empirical data. The concept of life itself, if viewed in its holism, far outweighs any scientific method of measurement. Life carries an intrinsic variability and malleability, as well as the way living beings interact and relate with one another in such a cohesive manner. Canguilhem contends that life has an intelligent capability of establishing its own sets of norms when placed into a given environment. Interestingly, he doesn’t necessarily push forward the notion that life is necessarily a metaphysical or ontological entity, separate from physiochemical systems. More so, he acknowledges that the intelligent life force in pursuit of recognizing the originality of life, in its inherent being.
There are some issues that biology as a science is unable to address concerning existence and definitions of life. Is vitality the cause of biological organization? Are vital forces really acting upon matter? Does vitalism emerge from chemical components? Does vitalism pose difficult questions that biology is unable to answer?
Nevertheless, vitalism is an established philosophical and conceptual tool to help us understand life in its totality and generality, including the definition of life. The historical and philosophical significance of vitalism indeed contributes to ongoing contemporary debates over definitions of life.
The true history of vitalism embraces the relationship between biological knowledge and life. When drawing a comparison between biology and more philosophically orientated schools of thought concerning life, there need not be a striking distinction from one another. That is, where there exists a gap in a strictly biological approach to the understandings of life — the philosophy of vitalism can add a sense of holism to such probing queries.
The biologist’s perspective of life has a bias towards mechanism, which insists on the physical processes in all biological function and development. Not only does a biologist’s contribution to defining existence carry merit, it does not seem to be a perspective that will wither away in due time. On the other hand, vitalists comprehend “that no matter the physico-chemical determinants of vital phenomena”, each of these pieces of existence are the end result of a science that is more autonomous, a science that is called life-force. It is not possible to cast-out this perspective either. Therefore, neither can be written-off as wrong, as they are in fact stances that are inseparable. Both notions contribute towards that which is alive, and cannot exist without the other.
‘’In the end, to do justice to vitalism is simply to give life back to it.’’ — Canguilhem
