To Bernard, what is Bernard’s: rescuing the meaning of “free life”
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.11606/issn.2178-6224v17i2p181-194Keywords:
Forms of Life, History of Physiology, Homeostasis, Internal Environment, VitalismAbstract
A recent critique on “homeostasis”, as elaborated by Walter Cannon (1871-1945), identifies contradictions intrinsic to the conditional association made by Claude Bernard (1813-1878) between “constancy of the internal environment” and “free life”. On the one hand, the critique reiterates the importance of the “internal environment” - the liquid where tissue cells live, extending to the evolution of the body’s fluid compartments. However, it also shows that the conditional association made by Bernard has neither empirical nor logical support. Therefore, assuming that “constancy of the internal environment” is the condition for “free life” is invalid. Apart from its intrinsic contradiction, other works have criticized the conditional on the assumption that Bernard, followed by Cannon, was referring to a rigid regulation of biological (life) variables in general. The objective of the present work is to show that this criticism is also invalid because, in our view, Bernard does not make this type of generalization when referring to “free life”. We conclude that avoiding ambiguities is necessary to appreciate Bernard’s theoretical contribution to physiology effectively.
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