By C.J.Wansbrough published Prometheus Unbound Vol.3 No.1 Autumn 1996

The word scientific seems to run like a leitmotif throughout our literature, especially in the last fifty years, acting as a source of moral and psychological justification for our medicine of the future. In this article I hope to question the value of comparing and contrasting a homoeopathic model, with a scientific one which is tainted with a crisis of staggering proportions.

In order to do this, I need to first discuss the scientific method and its goals. The original objectives of modern science were to create a system with high standards of credibility, which were universally agreed upon and could be resorted to as a final arbiter in matters of truth. Its appeal and power as a whole have mainly come from its impressive results that have catapulted humanity since the seventeenth century into a fury of accelerated growth. Notwithstanding the sheer magnitude of this change, which is now being argued to be another stage in our evolutionary state, brought about by extending ourselves spatially and psychologically and creating mirrors of ourselves in ever more sophisticated machines, the qualities of such a science have now been seriously brought into question.

Those characteristics which a traditional image of science have always fostered, mainly, infallibility, universality and objectivity, have been seriously undermined since the beginning of the twentieth century, with a number of disconcerting discoveries. Starting with Einstein's theory of relativity in 1905, that neat picture of an ordered cosmos with events unfolding with consistent regularity, independent of an observer who merely acted as spectator, suddenly collapsed with catastrophic consequences. The theory postulated that observers in different systems moving with respect to each other would perceive different worlds. At this point in time the infallible axiom of objectivity began to crumble, which was further compounded by the development of quantum mechanics. This in turn, depicted that the role of the observer was an essential component in the very act of defining an event. Another crisis in the foundations of mathematics, arose over Godel's Incompleteness theorem which stated that any mathematical theory would always contain axioms that could neither be proved nor disproved. (1) In the 1950's Cognitive Psychology began to question the basis of how we perceived reality, concluding that it was very much a question of personal constructions and that reality was a matter of consensus and not truth. All this led to a crisis of faith in how we may actually know anything and whether what science measured was real or a mere convention embedded within the psyche of the observer.

In order to fully comprehend the scientific method, we need to identify two components which are essential features of this model.

Sir Francis Bacon represented the scientific method at its most objective and remained a dominant influence on science from the time of his death in 1626 to the end of the nineteenth century. He saw method as a ruler that ' goes far to level men's wit and leaves but little to individual excellence because it performs everything by the surest rules and demonstration'. He envisaged method as a mode of achieving absolute truth and banishing any controversy. Equally pertinent to this method were Descartes and Leibnitz who shared his views and consolidated his outlook by applying the principles of logic, mathematics and reason to this method, thereby laying down the foundations for a formidable model of reality. Leibnitz, who with Newton shared equal fame in having developed the mathematics of Calculus, believed that with a secure method all truth was transparent. He states 'when controversies arise there is no need for discussion between two philosophers than there is between two calculators. All the two need to do is to sit down at a table pen in hand and mutually declare let us calculate'.

But from the turn of the century the epistemic component failed as has already been mentioned above and one reverted from an objective knowledge of reality to the probabilities of quantum theory. Thus followed a crucial period which has yet to be resolved concerning how we interpret our perceptions and what they actually represent. Inevitably this crisis over our cognitive abilities led to a number of different views on this problem, the most important being

1. Realism which believe that there is an objective reality 'out there' independent of ourselves. This reality exists solely by virtue of how the world is and is discoverable by the methods of science. This position is the one that most working scientists subscribe to when engaged in their work, but is also now regarded as the least credible.

2.Instrumentalism which beliefs that theories are neither true nor false but have the status only of instruments or calculating devices for predicting the results of measurements. In other words what this amounts to is the fact that the only things that are real are the results of observation.

3. Relativism an increasingly popular position, holds that there is no longer a relationship between a theory and an independent reality but it rather depends at least in part on something like the social perspective of the person holding the theory. In this view truth changes as we shift social or temporal contexts. (4)

So as science began to crumble concerning its claims to infallible objectivity, the scientific community now turned to its second component ,the methodology as sufficient justification for its supreme position as a vehicle for credibility. Most scientists were willing to concede that data obtained in their research might only represent a model of reality, and that the scientific endeavour sought to clarify and bring into focus ever more refined models which searched out the nature of reality. But having accepted that science might only represent reality they were unwilling to abandon its methodology and continued to maintain the following views (5)

These axioms maintained the credibility of science as the supreme arbiter of the truth, or at least sustained credibility in an agreed model. But even these principles came under severe attack by a number of philosophers of science. The first axiom was rejected because ' the idea of a method that contains firm, unchanging and absolutely binding principles for conducting the business of science meets considerable difficulty when confronted with the results of historical research'. (6) The second axiom can also be rejected because it is precisely by not applying the rigour of the scientific method because 'some thinkers either decided not to be bound by certain obvious methodological rules or because they unwittingly broke them', that science has managed to make its greatest progress. The first famous critic that elaborated this point was T. Kuhn in his book The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (7), in which he describes different phases of scientific development as being due to crisis-provoking anomalies and in the significance of discontinuities in the history of science. His most famous belief is that of the paradigm, which acts as a cognitive and sociological belief structure held in a society at one particular time, and adds that revolutionary phases in sciences occur when a paradigm can no longer fulfil its function in guiding research. The implications of his thesis point to the fact that science becomes a belief of sociological dimensions and that the fable of scientific progress now appears as solutions to problems within in a particular paradigm not as an ever-increasing approximation to the ultimate truth.

Another severe critic of the scientific methodology is Paul Feyerabend who argues in his book Against Method (8), that there is no such thing as a scientific method, but remains one mode of knowing amongst many traditions of equal validity. He states ' it is clear that allegiance to the new ideas will have to be brought about by means other than arguments. It will have to be brought about by irrational means such as propaganda, emotion and appeal to prejudices of all kinds'. Although fundamentally regarded as anarchic in his beliefs there is a kernel of truth in his notion that there are many methods and ways of coming to scientific truth, and what is taken to be true at any moment is more a matter of social convention than a product of logic or rational procedures.

Another critic of science R.Rorty (9) also rejects notions like objectivity, rigor, method, and invites to deny the idea that' following that method will enable to penetrate beneath the appearances and see nature in its own terms'. He replaces the idea of method with that of 'routine conversation' or 'good manners' with the effect that 'we shall not think there is an epistemologically pregnant answer to the question' what did Galileo do right that Aristotle did wrong? but what we should say is that Galileo found the 'right jargon' for that moment in time and to say that he was rational is an incorrect interpretation.' In fact it is great mistake to conceive the Galilean revolt as an appeal to reason at all, on the contrary it was through and through an anti-intellectual movement and a return to the contemplation of brute facts, being based on a recoil from the inflexible rationality of medieval thought.(10)

Nevertheless it becomes clear that the third axiom, that science is a cognitive and rational endeavour has been conserved and transformed into a theory of science, that makes it an outstanding form of rational culture, endowed with an ability to create transformative changes that has so far been unsurpassed. But despite its credibility, its compulsion as the norm lies on premises to do with the ethics of warfare and enslavement and its overweening desire to diminish and dominate Nature, with disastrous consequences, and has resulted in a frenzy of reductive megalomania. This reductive approach as a general attitude has lost any semblance of meaning, pursuing quantity at the expense of quality, insistent on' physical explanations that have primacy -quite simply- because they revealed reality, whereas subjective experience became merely an appearance.' (11)

This brief and rather concise critique of the scientific model, now allows us to uncover a number of features that have perhaps been absorbed into the homeopathic model, but are ultimately extraneous to a more accurate ideology of the holistic paradigm.

1. Though our model insists on a holistic paradigm, it tends to underplay, at times even ignore the qualitative approach (which includes the placebo effect, the possible interactions between patient and practitioner etc.) for a quantitative analysis of symptomatology, that at times has reduced the patient to a glorified symptom indicative of his entire life struggle. How often have we seen our greatest teachers, R.J.Sankaran and Seghal and others reduce an entire state to the status of an incisive chess game. Moreover when that patient failed to react to such reductive wit, the assumption of failure lay in the patient and not in the model which assumes that every patient corresponds to a simillimum. The reductive aspect with its under-emphasis on the qualitative aspect of the encounter, are strong features of the traditional scientific model.

2. The emphasis on constitutional prescribing that has led at times to a rather narrow approach towards the human condition, intimates a static model and implicates a further emphasis on reductive mania. Though clarity over a constitutional remedy, is never forthcoming, conceptually it implies certain fixed states of being that remain patterns of a reoccurring nature, that come and go in states of stress. Such patterns are a common feature of any patient and assume some constant point of reference, but the reality is very different, with the universe evolving towards ever greater states of complexity. As Henri Bergson so elegantly stated 'the universe is not made, but is being made continually. It is growing, perhaps indefinitely...'. New forms and structures, like new psychological states are constantly coming into being all the time, constitutional states imply a static pattern while the reality should be directed towards a more dynamic rhythm of the human condition in an ever evolving spiral of change. The dynamic should be directed towards the constant interchange between patient and practitioner which becomes an arena of intimate creativity in which prejudice dissolves and possibilities become constellated. This necessity for a fixed point of reference is an inherent assumption of an objective reality, that has been shown to be purely a device of the scientific model to ensure ongoing credibility.

3. Another assumption of how the scientific model has subsumed the homeopathic model, has been in the engaging rationale of modelling the human condition on an absolute epistemic objectivity. In others words for many years the homeopathic model has assumed the ability to extract some objective remedial pattern from a proving and proceed to distil this picture till it had become an established objective state. The reality is again very different, since the advent of cognitive psychology, it has been shown beyond a shadow of a doubt that the individual models reality according to his own particular constructs, thereby bringing into question the epistemic foundations of the homeopathic model. (12)

CONCLUSION

The three points, that of a receding qualitative approach, a tendency towards reductionism and that of a pursuit towards objectivity, have not been made with the intention of criticism, though they might represent problems with the homeopathic model, but only to highlight just how insidious the scientific model has been in constructing our own model of reality. As homeopathy has begun to gain credibility as a sociological phenomenon, together with other alternative models, partly due to disillusion with orthodox medicine, and partly due to realisation of the limitations of science, different models emphasising different aspects of reality have come into existence. It seems strange that at this stage in our evolving society when the scientific model is being questioned and criticised so vehemently that we should still accredit our own observations with a scientific status, instead of examining our own model for novel approaches towards an obvious impasse and crisis in the nature of science.

The homeopathic model (the mainly classical model) has pursued the rationale of the scientific model with alarming vehemence giving rise to an elegant model not dissimilar to its orthodox brethren. But in doing this, it has fallen prey to the very same crisis that science has been thrown into, with many voices failing to reach a consensus on methodology. It is clear that most homoeopaths give credence to a holistic approach but nevertheless miss the supreme irony of applying the scientific method to a holistic ideology. The philosophy of holism has an esoteric bias and is developed from another world view. Two predominant elements of any holistic or esoteric system must be (13)

1. The principles of universal interdependence both real and symbolic correspondences, which are said to exist among all parts of the universe. The entire universe is seen as a huge theatre of mirrors, dynamic and in a constant state of flux. The physicist David Bohm has spoken of what he calls the implicate, or enfolded order( an order in which the whole is enfolded within each part) as being a deeper physical reality than the surface or explicate order that is immediately perceived by our senses.

2. Living Nature- that is the idea that the cosmos is complex, plural, and hierarchical and that Nature occupies an essential place.

Both these ideas are very present in our own homeopathic models, though perhaps not reiterated in such a fashion, and act to remind us of how radical our model could be compared to that of the scientific model. We are wasting our time pursuing models of scientific credibility, when the latter are bankrupt and devoid of any world view, science has always been merciless in its pursuit of reality, only to find that truth has now turned into a whisper of its former glory. We are guilty of giving credence to a methodology that has not only refused to give us credibility, but is at present in a state of monumental crisis, having realised that by divorcing quality from quantity, ethics from reality, the subjective from the objective, that it has created a technological nightmare.

On the other hand, our holistic attitude is firmly grounded in a world view of dynamic relationships between different parts of nature, which is rich in revelations of every kind and is intimately apprehended by a process of potentization. A holistic attitude implies an ethic of compassion as relationships are at the very centre of its philosophy, and calls forth that idea of a Nature, seen, known and experienced as essentially alive in all its parts, inhabited by a light or vital fire circulating through it. Such a network implies an ecology of balance with the human individual at the very heart of such a finely woven tapestry of sympathies and antipathies linking the things of nature to that individual in an indissoluble dynamic. This dance is totally at odds with the reductive megalomania of the scientific model, since it presents a fresh approach to the problem of knowledge. We are in a unique situation of being to gain knowledge, in the sense of 'gnosis' through an intimate proving of nature, and thereby gain access to a vast metaphysics of Nature. In the words of Goethe's Faust 'he burns with desire to know the world/in its intimate context/to contemplate the active forces and the first elements.' Science has lost its heart and its hold on truth, even as a method it is merciless, and needs to be reassessed as to whether its credentials serve homeopathic philosophy. We need to create a different ideology based on a dialogue of relationships between all aspects of our being and cosmos, where such 'gnosis' of nature can lead to a radical reappraisal and lead us back to an ethic of compassion abandoning the rationale of science for a more subjective appreciation of nature.

References

1. Rediscovering the Mind by H.J.Morowitz in The Mind's I composed by D.R.Hofstadter & D.C.Dennet- Penguin Books 1986

2. Discourse of Sciences by M. Pera- University of Chicago Press Chicago and London 1994

3. Ibid above

4. Paradigms Lost by J.L. Casti- Cardinal Books 1989

5. Ibid No 2

6. Ibid No 2

7. The Structure of Scientific Revolutions by T. Kuhn- Chicago University of Chicago Press 1970

8. Against Method by P.Feyeraband- Verso Edition 1978

9. Philosophy and the Mirror of Knowledge by R.Rorty- Princeton Princeton University Press 1980

10. Science and the Modern World by A.N.Whitehead- Cambridge University Press 1926

11.Nature's Imagination edited by John Cornwell Oxford University Press 1995

12. Homeopathy and the Unprejudiced Observer by C.J.Wansbrough- The Homeopath No61 1996

13. Access to Western Esotericism by A.Faivre- State University of New York Press 1994