Emil du Bois-Reymond

Heinrich Emil du Bois -Reymond ( born November 7, 1818 in Berlin, † December 26, 1896 ) was a German physiologist and theoretical physician who is considered the founder of experimental electrophysiology. Special recognition he achieved by several high profile speeches on science, philosophy and culture. In the second half of the 19th century, he was one of the most respected figures in the international academic world.

Life

Du Bois -Reymond was a member of a prestigious Huguenot family. His father, Félix Henri du Bois- Reymond (1782-1864), came from St. Sulpice in Neuchâtel in Switzerland, was a Prussian territory at this time, and had worked his way up in Berlin for the Government and Head of Department in the Prussian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. His mother's family Minette Henry was one of the oldest and most respected Huguenot families in Berlin. Her grandfather Daniel Chodowiecke was chairman of the Academy of Arts in Berlin and her father, Jean Henry, longtime director of the Kunstkammer and librarian of the Prussian royal family. The younger brother of Emil Heinrich Du Bois -Reymond was the mathematician Paul du Bois- Reymond.

Du Bois -Reymond was the 1837 university entrance at the Berlin French high school. He then devoted himself in Berlin and Bonn, studying theology, philosophy, mathematics and geology. In Berlin, he came into contact with the anatomist and physiologist Johannes Müller ( 1801-1858 ). In 1839 Du Bois -Reymond began to study medicine. For " animal electricity ", he was born in 1841 after his doctor father, Carlo Matteucci, he had drawn attention to an essay. He was Doctorate in 1843 with a record of the views of the Greeks and Romans electric fish.

In 1845 he was part together with Wilhelm Ernst of bridge and Heinrich Wilhelm Dove of the founders of the Physical Society in Berlin. A year later, Du Bois -Reymond habilitated with the work via the acid reaction of the muscle tissue after their death. Between 1848 and 1884 he published two volumes of his main work, the investigations on animal electricity, separated into several parts.

He was then an assistant at the 1849 Berlin Anatomical Museum and also a lecturer in anatomy at the Berlin Academy of Arts. In 1851 he was elected full member of the Royal Prussian Academy of Sciences in Berlin. Since 1853 he was a corresponding member of the Accademia dei Lincei in Rome. In 1855 he was appointed professor of physiology at the University of Berlin and in 1858 successor miller on the Department of Physiology and Director of the Physiological Institute at the University of Berlin.

In his capacity as President of the University of Berlin and as president of the Prussian Academy of Sciences he held in 1870 a speech in which he justified the enslavement of science by governance: "We, the University of Berlin, we have our seat opposite the Royal Castle by virtue of the certificate of incorporation of the institution are the intellectual bodyguard of the house of Hohenzollern. " ( Quoted from the English edition: A Speech on German War, London, 1870, p 31 ) In his essay " Omnipotent Government" of 1944, the major liberal scholar and economist Ludwig von Mises kritiserte this subjugation of free science under the power interests of the State with the words: ". , we leave the example of Germany as a warning for us German Culture 1870 was doomed from the day of the year ... where the universities are to bodyguard and the scholars are eager to himself in a" scientific front " classified, the gates for the invasion of barbarism are wide open. " ( http://mises.org/etexts/mises/og/intro.asp, p 14)

Some years later (1872 ) You held Bois- Reymond his famous speech "On the limits of the knowledge of nature " before the 45th Assembly of German Natural Scientists and Physicians in Leipzig ( " ignoramus et ignorabimus "). In 1869 he was one of the founding members of the Berlin Society for Anthropology, Ethnology and Prehistory. In for his scientific achievements, he was taken on January 24 1877 in the Prussian Order pour le Merite for Arts and Science.

Work

Electrophysiology

You developed Bois -Reymond, constructed and refined a number of scientific instruments such as the galvanometer or the Schlitteninduktorium for generating variable high voltages. No later than 1842, he succeeded the proof of " animal electricity ". Its chief merit lies in the years of painstaking work, which expressed itself in the construction of the instruments through constant accuracy in the measurements and a great ingenuity and skill. Du Bois - Reymond's research led to the electrocardiogram, the electroencephalogram and the electromyogram to a special branch of medical diagnostics.

Epistemology and philosophy of science

Already in the 1840s, you put Bois- Reymond the cornerstones of his scientific methodology. Together with his friends and colleagues Ernst Wilhelm von Bridge and Hermann von Helmholtz, he represented clearly anti - vitalistic and materialistic- mechanistic positions. Du Bois -Reymond was also a committed advocate of Darwinism. With its " Molekeltheorie " developed Du Bois -Reymond, accordingly, a purely physical- mechanistic theory to explain electrophysiological measurements.

" Beyond the Limits of Natural Science "

Inspired by issues and research results in the field of contemporary brain research held Emil Du Bois- Reymond 1872, a speech, " Beyond the Limits of Natural Science ." In it, he thematized epistemological problems associated with consciousness (meaning, in essence, the " phenomenal consciousness" as a qualitative experience, ie the so-called " qualia " ) and the free will. In this speech to the 45th meeting of the " Society of German Natural Scientists and Physicians " in Leipzig falls also the famous saying " ignoramus et ignorabimus " (Latin for " We do not know and we will never know ") that an ongoing heated debate triggered on the limits of knowledge of nature, which is known as " Ignorabimus dispute". Emil Du Bois- Reymond was at that time as a scientific spokesman in Germany and internationally. His theses were such a special attention, even though they offered little new content and will be discussed in the philosophy of mind since antiquity.

" Knowledge of nature " You put Bois- Reymond with the scientific methodology equal and these in turn to me the mechanistic physics of his time. The eponymous final words were:

" Compared to the mysteries of the physical world is the naturalist long accustomed to be with male renunciation " utter ignoramus. " Looking back on the winning path traveled by him shall take into account the silent consciousness that where he does not know now, he could do under certain circumstances at least, and perhaps will one day know. Compared to the puzzle but what matter and force are, and how they are able to think, he must once and for all to the much harder to be delivered verdict decide: " Ignorabimus " ".

Du Bois -Reymond doubted in this speech that the ontological questions about the nature of the basic concepts of mechanics, matter and force, but also of consciousness can ever be resolved scientifically. This skeptic attitude he entered, contrary to popular at that time among scientists notion that a positivist and materialist- Darwinist ideology could justify a complete picture of the world from which ethics can be inferred. At the same time Du Bois -Reymond but also reaffirmed the value of science and the possibilities of knowledge obtained within its borders. His main argument is the criticism of a mechanistic and physicalist reductionism, the apparent imperative of the scientific way of working, but the qualia problem could never be solved. The "knowledge" in the context of a reductionist mechanism is thus limited to Du Bois- Reymond always as well as the basic features of this approach to explain the world itself

Du Bois - Reymond's main concern in this debate was the establishment of an "epistemological truce " between science, religion and philosophy. Insofar as this speech was not a departure from the reductionist physicalism, which he vehemently advocated for years, but only a critique of the " monopoly of truth of the mechanics ."

Criticism of the " Ignorabimus " formulated in the 20th century in particular, the mathematician David Hilbert, the physicist Ernst Mach and the Vienna Circle.

"The Seven Mystery "

Eight years later, you grabbed Bois- Reymond, the heated discussion with another speech, " The Seven Mystery " on, in which he looked at the question of the nature of the most important concepts of natural science in the context of scientific knowledge as not answerable.

Questions 1, 2, 5 and 7 saw Du Bois -Reymond as " transcendent " to.

Became well-known in this context Ernst Haeckel's attempt to answer these questions in the context of a monistic Darwinism.

Cultural History

Du Bois -Reymond sees science as the " absolute organ of civilization " and the only human endeavor, which is progressing. Consequently, the history of science is the actual history of mankind. This glorification of science goes hand in hand at Du Bois- Reymond with a pessimistic and negative attitude towards other cultural goods such as politics, art and religion.

Du Bois -Reymond price

Since 1999, the German Physiological Society annually awards the Du Bois -Reymond prize to a young scientist in the field of physiology.

Works

• Commemorative speech on Johannes Müller. F. Dümmler, Berlin 1860 doi: 10.5962/bhl.title.61438
• Collected Essays on the general muscle and nerve physics. Veit, Leipzig 1875-1877 doi: 10.5962/bhl.title.6840
• Studies on the eel. Veit, Leipzig, 1881, doi: 10.5962/bhl.title.8443