Philosophy of Science

Preface

My interest in the philosophy of science was promoted as early as the 1960s in lectures by the physicist Prof Alfred Gierer in Tübingen, but took concrete shape through the gene technology discussions of the 1980s (Reiber 1996, 1998). With my professional work in clinical neurochemistry, purely practical reasons followed, because an adequate interpretation of patient data depends on the disease models. It then increasingly became a fundamental question for me as to why relevant paradigm shifts take not just decades, but centuries, if they take place at all (Reiber 2017a). Due to my personal communication with the scientists of the DDR I was able to compare the science in two countries of different social and political ideologies (Reiber, 2016, 217b). My basic education in biology and biophysics allowed a different approach to philosophy of science compared to the approach in the humanities. With the complexity approach and material selforganization the old brain-mind dualism ist resolved (Reiber 2007, 2008, 2012b).

The papers cited here were written (in German language) as part of my lectures on the philosophy of science for natural scientists and as part of lectures at the German Society for the History and Theory of Biology, the Lichtenberg Society and the Ernst Bloch Association. The basics are described with references in the following topics

Paradigm change

The description of various paradigm changes that are necessary for progress in medicine (Reiber 2024) was motivated by a barely comprehensible delay in scientific acceptance over decades. Even when it comes to patient welfare, the acceptance of a new finding or theory is subject to a number of non-scientific conditions that are more likely to be political, economic or dependent on the Zeitgeist.

In my current book (Reiber 2023,2024), I describe the medically relevant concepts of brain barrier functions, immunological networks and chronic diseases in order to point out the practical consequences if the actual basis of knowledge, which has long been scientifically proven, does not find its way into school and university education and certainly not into practice.

Basic models in philosophy of science

T.S. Kuhn’s model of the history of science, in the sense of a falsification concept introduced by Karl Popper and the subsequent paradigm shift, is certainly a rare exception in practice. The philosopher of science Imre Lakatos even rejected the view that theories must be abandoned altogether once they have been falsified, i.e. disproved by experimental or empirical results, as ‘naïve falsificationism’. An important argument of his is that there is no pure data consisting only of observation. Any observation is only possible because it is based on a theory. In short: falsification can also be wrong. His friend Paul Feierabend, the anarchist among scientific theorists, even believes that there is no systematic way to recognise what is right or wrong. As he puts it: ‘And where arguments do seem to have an effect, it is more often due to their physical repetition than to their semantic content. Once one has conceded this much, one must also admit the possibility of non-argument-related developments in adults as well as in institutions such as science, religion, prostitution, etc.’ (Wider den Methodenzwang, Suhrkamp,1995,p.23).

These are system-immanent, theoretical approaches. We find a completely different context of justification in the social context through Michel Foucault. He examined the unconscious basic attitudes of those working in science as a function of social, labour and power structures in history since the Renaissance. As practising researchers, we can also directly understand today that both the choice of areas worth researching and the acceptance of the results that can be achieved depend on the funding provided by society, the political conditions and the zeitgeist (Reiber, 2016, 2017b).

However, this still does not explain how the existence of controversies that outlast all social systems comes about. I have shown this (Reiber 2017a), using the example of the history of developmental and evolutionary biology since Aristotle and Plato, how the parallel, unwavering continuation of two competing narrative traditions over thousands of years depends on the split perception in the hemispheres of the human brain.

The two worlds of the human brain

With increasing neurobiological knowledge, it is becoming clearer that the problem of controversary views on the world is not a scientific problem, nor is it a causal social problem, but has more to do with a special function of our brains. With the functional lateralisation of the two brain hemispheres, we already create the competing experience of the world within ourselves (Reiber, 2017a). We need and use both hemispheres of the brain for all our functions (language, art, maths). However, both hemispheres of the brain are structurally and functionally different. The left hemisphere of the brain usually searches for what it already knows and what fits into its existing ideas, what it has already learnt. The other, the right hemisphere, searches for everything that is new and processes even the most complex relationships. This half of the brain dreams and contributes to creative, spatial ideas and is also important for emotions. This asymmetry of the brain is phylogenetically old and can be found in all vertebrates.

These different attentions of the two hemispheres of the brain ultimately lead to these different constructs, images, ideas about the world, to different realities that can appear contradictory, incompatible or paradoxical (Reiber 2017a).

This new aspect of scientific theory and interpretation of the history of science has become particularly visible in the last century in the example of genetics, epigenetics and material self-organisation of physical, biochemical and biological structures, functions and emergence of qualities (Reiber, 2008, 2012a, 2012b).

References

Reiber H (2024) Cerebrospinal fluid diagnostics in Neurology. Paradigm change in Brain Barriers, Immune system and Chronic Diseases (Springer, ISBN 978-3-662-68839-7)

Reiber H (2023). Liquordiagnostik in der Neurologie. Paradigmenwechsel bei Hirnschranken, Immunsystem und chronischen Krankheiten. Essentials-Reihe, Springer, Berlin, ISBN 978-3-662-68136-7, ISBN 3-662-68136-6

Reiber H (2017a). Genetisches Programm und Selbstorganisation stabiler Form. Die zwei Hirnhälften und Jahrtausende Koexistenz kontroverser Sicht der Welt. In: Kaasch (Hg.). VWB-Verlag für Wissenschaft und Bildung, Berlin, Bd. 19. S. 189-213
Reiber, H (2017b) Wissenschaft und Gesellschaft in der DDR und BRD. Ein Vergleich mit Beispielen aus der Biologie und Medizin. In: Kaasch et al (Hg.). VWB-Verlag für Wissenschaft und Bildung, Berlin, Bd. 20. S. 151-178
Reiber H (2016). Liquordiagnostik in Deutschland nach 1950. Entwicklungen im Kontext von Wissenschaft und Gesellschaft in DDR und BRD. Nervenarzt 87:1261-1270
Reiber H (2012a). Epigenesis and epigenetics- understanding chronic diseases as a selforganizing stable phenotype Neurol. Psych. Brain Res. 18: 79-81
Reiber H (2012b). Komplexität und Selbstorganisation stabiler biologischer Gestalt in Epigenese und Evolution – Von der genozentrischen zur phänozentrischen Biologie. In: Kaasch, et al (Hrsg.). Verhandlungen zur Geschichte und Theorie der Biologie, Berlin: VWB. Bd. 17, S. 37 – 80
Reiber H (2008). Von Lichtenbergs „Gespenst“ zur Emergenz der Qualität. Die neurobiologische Hirn-Geist-Diskussion im Licht der Komplexitätswissenschaft. In: U.Joost und A.Neumann (Hrsg) Lichtenberg Jahrbuch 2008, S.65-93
Reiber H (2007) Die Komplexität biologischer Gestalt als zeitunabhängiges Konstrukt im Zustands-Raum. Zum naturwissenschaftlichen Umgang mit Qualitäten. In: Doris Zeilinger (Hg): VorSchein, Jahrbuch der Ernst-Bloch- Assoziation, Antogo Verl. Nürnberg, S. 39-61
Reiber H (1998). Die Entstehung von Form und Krankheit. Selbstorganisation oder genetisches Programm – zwei Paradigmen im Widerstreit. In: Engels, Junker & Weingarten (Hrgb). Ethik der Biowissenschaften. Verlag für Wissenschaft und Bildung, Berlin, S. 393-410.
Reiber H, Davey B (1996). Desert-storm-syndrome and immunization. Arch Internal Med 156:217.