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Hans Driesch

Hans Adolf Eduard Driesch(28 October 1867 – 17 April 1941) was a GermanbiologistandphilosopherfromBad Kreuznach.He is most noted for his early experimental work inembryologyand for his neo-vitalistphilosophy ofentelechy.He has also been credited with performing the first artificial 'cloning' of an animal in the 1880s, although this claim is dependent on how one defines cloning.[2]

Hans Adolf Eduard Driesch
Born28 October 1867
Bad Kreuznach,Kingdom of Prussia
Died17 April 1941(1941-04-17)(aged 73)
Leipzig,Germany
CitizenshipGerman
Known forDevelopmental biology
Neo-vitalistphilosophy ofentelechy
Lebensphilosophie[1]
Equifinality
Scientific career
FieldsBiologyandphilosophy

Early years

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Driesch was educated at theGelehrtenschule des Johanneums.He began to study medicine in 1886 underAugust Weismannat the University of Freiburg. In 1887 he attended theUniversity of JenaunderErnst Haeckel,Oscar HertwigandChristian Ernst Stahl.In 1888 he studied physics and chemistry at the University of Munich. He received his doctorate in 1889. He travelled widely on field and study trips and lecture-tours, visiting Plymouth, India, Zurich and Leipzig where, in 1894, he published hisAnalytische Theorie der organischen EntwicklungorAnalytic Theory of Organic Development.His interests encompassed mathematics, philosophy and physics as well as biology. He married Margarete Relfferschneidt, and the couple had two children.

Experiments in embryology

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From 1891 Driesch worked in Naples at theMarine Biological Station,where until 1901 he continued to experiment and seek a theoretical formulation of his results. He enquired into classical and modern philosophy in his search for an adequate theoretical overview[3]and ended by adopting anAristotleanteleologicaltheory ofentelechy.

Under the influence of his teacherHaeckel,Driesch had tested the mechanistic embryological theories of another of Haeckel's students,Wilhelm Roux.Driesch studied sea urchin embryos, and found that when he separated the two cells of the embryo after the first cell-division, each developed into a complete sea urchin. This was contrary to his expectation that each cell would develop into the corresponding half of the animal, a prediction based onWilhelm Roux's earlier work with frog embryos. This also happened at the four-cell stage: entire larvae ensued from each of the four cells, albeit smaller than usual. By 1885 Driesch's experiments on thesea urchinembryo showed that it was even possible to shuffle theblastomeresof the early embryo without affecting the resulting larva.

These findings suggested that any singlecellin the early embryo was capable of forming any part of the developing larva. This seemed to be an important refutation of both earlypreformationideas and the later mosaic theory ofWilhelm Roux,and was to be subject to much discussion in the ensuing years. The conclusion caused friction among Driesch, Roux and Haeckel.[4]Driesch's findings brought about the adoption of the terms "totipotent" and "pluripotent" cell, referring respectively to a cell that can generate every cell in an organism and one that can generate nearly every cell.

Driesch's results were confirmed with greater precision, and the experiments extended, bySven Hörstadiuswho showed that conclusions of equivalence between sea urchin embryonic cells were an over-simplification.

The philosophy of entelechy

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Driesch, believing that his results compromised contemporary mechanistic theories ofontogeny,instead proposed that the autonomy of life that he deduced from this persistence of embryological development despite interferences was due to what he calledentelechy,a term borrowed fromAristotle's philosophy to indicate alife forcewhich he conceived of aspsychoidor "mind-like", that is; non-spatial, intensive, and qualitative rather than spatial, extensive, and quantitative.

Driesch was awarded the chair of natural theology at theUniversity of Aberdeen,where he delivered theGifford Lecturesin 1906 and 1908 onThe Science and Philosophy of the Organism- the first comprehensive presentation of his ideas. From 1909, determined to take up a career in academic philosophy, he taught natural philosophy at the Faculty of Natural Sciences in Heidelberg. In the ensuing decade he published a complete system of philosophy in three volumes, including his fundamentalTheory of Order(1912) in which he proposed a three-part "doctrineof order ".

In 1919 he was ordinary professor of systematic philosophy at Cologne and in 1921 professor of philosophy at Leipzig, though he was a visiting professor inNanjingandBeijingduring 1922-23, and in 1923 he received honorable doctor's degree fromNational Southeastern University(later renamedNational Central UniversityandNanjing University) where he taught for a semester. He taught at the University of Wisconsin (1926–27) and in Buenos Aires (1928). In 1933 he was removed from his Leipzig chair and prematurely placed in emeritus status by the Nazi administration,[5]the first non-Jewish academic to be thus expelled, because of hispacifismand open hostility to Nazism. He became interested in parapsychology and published on such phenomena astelepathy,clairvoyance, andtelekinesis.

His concept of entelechy was criticized by the scientific community. BiologistJ. W. Jenkinsonwrote that Driesch was inventing new entities "beyond necessity and the progress of science would be better served by a simpler philosophy."[6]ZoologistHerbert Spencer Jenningscommented that the concept of entelechy "does not help in our understanding of matters in the least."[7]

His vitalist writings were criticized by historianRuth Brandonfor being based on a religious rather than an objective scientific standpoint.[8]

Parapsychology

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Driesch developed a deep interest in psychical research andparapsychology.In 1931, he published a methodology of parapsychological research (in German) and in 1933 he published a book on the topic titledPsychical Research: The Science of the Super-normal.From 1926 to 1927 he served as the president of theSociety for Psychical Research.

Selected works

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In German

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  • Die Biologie als selbstständige Wissenschaft(1893)
  • Die Lokalisation morphogenetischer Vorgänge Ein Beweis vitalistischen Geschehens(1899)
  • Analytische Theorie der organischen Entwicklung(1894)
  • Der Vitalismus als Geschichte und als Lehre(1905)
  • Der Begriff der organischen Form(1919)
  • Philosophie des Organischen(4th ed. 1928)

In English

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See also

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References

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  1. ^Thurnher, Rainer, Röd, Wolfgang and Schmidinger, Heinrich,Die Philosophie des ausgehenden 19. und des 20. Jahrhunderts: Lebensphilosophie und Existenzphilosphie,C.H.Beck, 2002, p. 378.
  2. ^Bellomo, Michael (2006).The stem cell divide: the facts, the fiction, and the fear driving the greatest scientific, political, and religious debate of our time.Amacom. p.134.ISBN978-0-8144-0881-0....the popular meaning of the term 'clone' is an identical copy that has been created by some conscious design. Under this definition, the first artificially created clone was made in 1885... [Footnote:] Depending on the definition used, one could argue that the experiments carried out by Hans Driesch and Hans Spemmann were not instances of true cloning, but artificial twinning.
  3. ^UXL online biography, accessed May 2008
  4. ^Lois N. Magner,A history of the life sciences: Third Edition, Revised and Expanded,CRC Press, 2002
  5. ^Biography and bibliographyin theVirtual Laboratoryof theMax Planck Institute for the History of Science
  6. ^Jenkinson, J. W. (1911).Vitalism.The Hibbert Journal9: 545-559.
  7. ^Jennings, H. S.(1907).Behavior of the Starfish, Asterias Forreri De Loriol.University of California Publications in Zoology. p. 180
  8. ^Brandon, Ruth.(1983).The Spiritualists: The Passion for the Occult in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries.Weidenfeld and Nicolson. pp. 91-92.ISBN0-297-78249-5

Further reading

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