Firstly, it is important to understand the context of Fleck’s work which, notwithstanding his travails, still amounted to a distinguished career–see<\/p>\n
http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Ludwik_Fleck<\/a><\/p>\n http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Ludwig_Fleck_Prize<\/a><\/p>\n Fagan states: “Ludwik Fleck’s theory of thought-styles has been hailed as a pioneer of constructivist science studies and sociology of scientific knowledge” [1]<\/a>. A recent volume, “Cognition and Fact: Materials on Ludwig Fleck,” [2]<\/a> contains a number of his original articles, commentaries from current scholars and an extensive bibliography an Fleck (reflecting, again, his remarkably prolific career). In their “Introduction,” the editors state: “…one might rightly call Fleck a ‘classical’ figure both of epistemology and of the historical sociology of science, one whose works are comparable with Popper’s ‘The Logic of Scientific Discovery.'” [2<\/a>, p. ix] Fleck’s work was cited at least 21 times in the philosophy and sociology of science literature during the 1930’s [2<\/a>, pp. 456-457].<\/p>\n Importantly, Fleck also had a special relationship to the thinking of Thomas Kuhn, who admired Fleck and had acknowledged an intellectual debt to Fleck’s ideas his classic 1962 “The Structure of Scientific Revolutions” [3<\/a>, “Preface,” pp. vi-vii]. Kuhn also promoted the English publication of, and wrote the “Forward” to, Fleck’s seminal 1935 monograph “Genesis and Development of a Scientific Fact,” [4<\/a>, “Forward,” pp. vii-xi]. However, Fleck was also a microbiologist and early immunologist, with an expert knowledge of typhus.<\/p>\n Indeed, when he was engulfed by the World War II Nazi Holocaust, his knowledge in this area resulted in his forced collaboration with “Nazi Doctors” in creating typhus vaccines, etc . He experienced horrible persecution, including the in the initial ghetto (where he worked on the epidemic typhus situation creating vaccines under primitive conditions) then Auschwitz and then Buchenwald (supposedly producing typhus vaccine for the Nazis, including human experiments–which have engendered controversy). Fleck testified at Nuremberg and subsequently wrote about among others, epistemological issues from his experience.<\/p>\n However, he has also been criticized for his alleged degree of cooperation with “Nazi” doctors. [5]<\/a>.<\/p>\n Hedfors concludes: “The accusation against Fleck could be that, blinded by his commitment to science, he indulged in faulty science. Before the war, while he was working outside the academy, this amounted to a rather harmless pursuit…While he was a prisoner of Block 50 in Buchenwald, however, it assumed a different standing, though the reasons or motives for his obsessive indulgence remain obscure.”[5]<\/a><\/p>\n Fleck may indeed may have been “obsessively” devoted to his sociological interpretation of science involving “thought styles” within “thought collectives” (roughly corresponding to Kuhn’s later “paradigm” formulation). Then the Holocaust happened and, while experiencing unbelievable personal trauma, he was “force-fed” “Nazi Science.” The latter was a most atrocious and warped creation, yet, in its own way, an extreme example of the “thought collective” notion. Perhaps, focusing on this intellectual fact helped Fleck keep his sanity and survive. Fleck’s apparent sociological examination of this context was also criticized in the post-World War II atmosphere. But all this is just a kind of “political distraction” with what I am trying to convey.<\/p>\n My “thought experiment,” as it were, is as follows: If the whole Nazi thing had not occurred historically, what might have happened to Fleck’s thinking, not necessarily in philosophy but, more germaine to our purposes, in his “day-job,” i.e. biomedicine? Dealing with infectious diseases, and with discovery of penicillin in 1928, he was perfectly positioned to interpret “philosophically,” the significance of the early antibiotics as “exemplars” of biomedical “reductionism” (see below).<\/p>\n As well, Fleck, as the “founder” of the “sociological” perspective on scientific history, might well have been challenged–and influenced–by competing philosophical perspectives of the time, as Kuhn famously was in a colloquium held in 1965 and published in 1970 as “Criticism and the Growth of Knowledge” [6]<\/a>.<\/p>\n Kuhn’s thinking was influenced by these challenges. Note that in “Reflections to my Critics” [6,<\/a> pp. 231-278] he mentions the “disciplinary matrix” concept, along with “symbolic generalizations,” “shared models” and “concrete puzzle solutions” which he called “exemplars.” These concepts were more formally presented in his “Postscript–1969” of the 2nd edition of “Structure of Scientific Revolutions”–for discussion, see Section IV (e)<\/a> of my “Epistemology and Chinese Medicine” essay.<\/p>\n Importantly, most of the scientific issues cited as examples in these arguments were from physics, chemistry, optics, etc; namely, the “physical sciences.” Kuhn, himself had a background in physics. But what if a professionally active biomedical scientist (and philosopher) such as Fleck had been so challenged? What effect might that have had on his philosophical but, more importantly, his view of biomedicine?<\/p>\n Specifically, I would have wondered whether he would have ended up including a formulation analogous to Kuhn’s “symbolic generalizations” which are like “laws” of Nature. This would have placed him in the tradition promoting “lawfulness” in biology (from Schrodinger to Haken to Kelso) as opposed to the philosopher Smart and others (denying the possibility of biological “laws) or modern computer modelling and statistical approaches–for brief discussion see Section VI (a) <\/a>of the aforementioned essay.<\/p>\n As noted above, the admitted Kuhnian “exemplar” (“concrete puzzle solution”) of penicillin strongly moved the “climate” in biomedicine towards “reductionism.” This evolution was rather “implicit.” Fleck’s approach of explicitly analysing epistemological influences and thus, recognising their limitations, might have been been particularly relevant here.<\/p>\n Thus, absent the events of World War II, Fleck might have assumed a unique leadership position in both philosophy of science and biomedicine, a conjoining which would have resulted in his being widely and diversely influential.<\/p>\n He did actually write in one of his last articles: “There is no doubt that science is becoming a servant of politics and industry, to the great detriment of its cultural mission.” [7<\/a>, p. 153] That’s fairly advanced for 1960! Today, I would say that modern biomedicine is deficient epistemologically, although the argument is rarely, if ever, explicitly made. Heng’s small–and, I believe, under-appreciated 2008 paper confronts specifically “The Conflict Between Complex Systems and Reductionism” in biomedicine [8]<\/a>. He also presents examples which can be seen as “Kuhnian anomalies” [3<\/a>, pp. 51-65] in the reductionistic paradigm which still dominates much of biomedicine. Here, along with ethical, implicit epistemological questions are being raised.<\/p>\n One last anecdote relating Fleck to biomedical epistemology. Fleck, back in 1935, felt it an essential exercise to analyze in detail the “epistemology” of the Wassermann reaction which was, by then, already the accepted serological test for syphylis. This analysis is the central example in his classical monograph “Genesis and Development of a Scientific Fact.” [4]<\/a> He clearly felt that biomedical “discoveries” need to be examined epistemologically even if–and perhaps especially if–they have come to connote underlying assumptions in an important field.<\/p>\n About 50 years later, a ‘disguised epistemological debate’ of sorts occurred during the AIDS crisis with the so-called “HIV-denialists,” notably including then world authority on retrovirology, Peter Duesberg. Rather than a sober intellectual discussion, it evolved as a bitter and absurd controversy about whether AIDS was indeed infectious and “caused” by HIV as identified in the serological test (Actually, the infectious nature of the epidemic was identified very early by standard public health measures.). The controversy quickly spread from what Fleck called the “esoteric” and “exoteric” circles of biomedicine’s “thought collective,” spilling into the public domain.<\/p>\n Adverse public health and therapeutic lapses variously occurred, but when accepted by the then leader of South Africa (Mbeki), reached disastrous levels. A conservative estimate of resulting excess mortality (330,000!) is given in a Guardian article from 2008 [9]<\/a>.<\/p>\n Actually, I consider it a sort of “neo-Kuhnian anomaly” itself,\u00a0 that\u00a0 Duesberg was such a central figure in retrovirology prior to becoming a leading “HIV-denialist; in the sense of\u00a0 “What does that say about the epistemic basis of the discipline of\u00a0 retrovirology itself?”\u00a0 On another level, Western biomedical establishment was unable to deal with the argument in the context of the “epistemology” of the serological test\u00a0 (in Fleck’s tradition). Some of the aspects of scientific interaction over the HIV-test were, eventually aired and settled in the legal arena!<\/p>\n The infectious etiology of AIDS was deduced by classical epidemiology well before viral isolation.) . Neither side seemed to recognize epistemology\/ontology as an underlying issue. I believe, an “ontological”\u00a0 re-evaluation of\u00a0 the concept of retroviral (and perhaps even viral) “infection” was in order. After all, “retroviruses” exist in our genomes as “HERVs” (“human endogenous retroviruses”) suggesting a possible informational\u00a0 function.\u00a0 The current pharmacological success in HIV management also does not detract from this point..<\/p>\n My point here is that\u00a0 that intellectual “hiccup” (if you will, the “Duesberg paradox”)\u00a0 connotes, more widely, n a broken thread “thread” in Western biomedical epistemology–a thread which “would have” emerged from an uninterrupted\u00a0 Fleckian tradition? In a larger context, Naziism , I am contending, succeeded here in their (specific) goal of wiping out out, in Europe, a portion of the rich intellectual cross-fertilization of Jewish with general European–and indeed especially German–intellectual cultures. Fleck, although a Polish Jew, was part of this phenomenon. With respect scientific continuity transplanted to\u00a0 America, I am suggesting that, in the context of the pragmatics of war,\u00a0 physics (cf. the atomic bomb) fared far better than biomedicine. This consideration is worthy of our attention and could be seen as comparable, for example, to disruptions in “Traditional Chinese Medicine” attributed to the Maoist “cultural revolution.”<\/p>\n REFERENCES & NOTES:<\/p>\n <\/a>[1] Fagan M.B., “Fleck and the social constitution of scientific http:\/\/www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov\/pubmed\/19917486<\/a><\/p>\n http:\/\/www.owlnet.rice.edu\/~mbf2\/Fleck_rev4.pdf<\/a><\/p>\n <\/a>[2] Cohen, R.S., & Schnelle, T., eds., “Cognition and Fact: Materials on <\/a>[3] Kuhn, T.S., “The Structure of Scientific Revolutions” 2nd ed., <\/a>[4] Fleck, L., “Genesis and Development of a Scientific Fact,” Note: Interestingly, Lester King spends an entire chapter on his <\/a>[5] Hedfors E., “Medical science in the light of the Holocaust: http:\/\/www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov\/pubmed\/18831133<\/a><\/p>\n http:\/\/technologiecollege.free.fr\/sitetec\/techno\/archives_2011\/tempo\/fichiers%20BONAH\/Fleck-Hedfors\/hedfors.art4.pdf<\/a><\/p>\n <\/a>[6] Lakatos, I., & Musgrave, A., eds., “Criticism and the Growth of <\/a>[7] Fleck, L., “Crisis in Science,” reprinted in ref. [2], pp.153-158 <\/a>[8] Heng, H.H., “The Conflict Between Complex Systems and Reductionism,” http:\/\/jama.ama-assn.org\/cgi\/content\/short\/300\/13\/1580<\/a><\/p>\n http:\/\/img2.tapuz.co.il\/CommunaFiles\/31773502.pdf<\/a><\/p>\n <\/a>[9] Boseley, S., “Mbeki Aids policy ‘led to 330,000 deaths’,” The
\nobjectivity,” Stud Hist Philos Biol Biomed Sci. 2009 Dec;40(4):272-85.
\ndoi: 10.1016\/j.shpsc.2009.09.005. Epub 2009 Nov 2–see<\/p>\n
\nLudwig Fleck,” Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science, vol. 87, D.
\nReidel Publ. Co., 1986<\/p>\n
\nenlarged, “Foundations for the Unity of Scie1nce, vol.2 no. 2,
\nUniv. of Chicago Press, 1970 1st ed., 1962<\/p>\n
\ntranslated by Bradley, F., & Trenn, T.J., edited and with commentary by
\nTrenn, T.J., & Merton, R.K., Univ. Chicago Press, 1979; orig. German
\nedition, Benno Schwabe & Co., 1935<\/p>\n
\nformulation of a medical “fact”–see [King, l., Chap. 12 “What is a
\nFact?” in “Medical Thinking: A Historical Preface,” Prineton Univ.
\nPress, 1982, pp. 247-266]<\/p>\n
\nDeparting from a post-war paper by Ludwik Fleck”, Soc Stud Sci. 2008
\nApr;38(2):259-83–see<\/p>\n
\nKnowledge: Proceedings of the International Colloquium in the Philosophy
\nof Science, London, 1965, vol. 4,” Cambridge Univ. Press, 1970<\/p>\n
\n(orig. publ. in Science, “Discussion on ‘Science and Human Welfare,”
\nJuly 8, 1960)<\/p>\n
\nJAMA, 2008;300(13):1580-1581—links at:<\/p>\n
\nGuardian, Wednesday 26 November 2008–link at:<\/p>\n