Department of History and Philosophy of Science, University of Cambridge, United Kingdom.
Stud Hist Philos Sci. 2020 Aug;82:120-130. doi: 10.1016/j.shpsa.2019.12.005. Epub 2019 Dec 20.
The physiologist Claude Bernard was an important nineteenth-century methodologist of the life sciences. Here I place his thought in the context of the history of the vera causa standard, arguably the dominant epistemology of science in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Its proponents held that in order for a cause to be legitimately invoked in a scientific explanation, the cause must be shown by direct evidence to exist and to be competent to produce the effects ascribed to it. Historians of scientific method have argued that in the course of the nineteenth century the vera causa standard was superseded by a more powerful consequentialist epistemology, which also admitted indirect evidence for the existence and competence of causes. The prime example of this is the luminiferous ether, which was widely accepted, in the absence of direct evidence, because it entailed verified observational consequences and, in particular, successful novel predictions. According to the received view, the vera causa standard's demand for direct evidence of existence and competence came to be seen as an impracticable and needless restriction on the scope of legitimate inquiry into the fine structure of nature. The Mill-Whewell debate has been taken to exemplify this shift in scientific epistemology, with Whewell's consequentialism prevailing over Mill's defense of the older standard. However, Bernard's reflections on biological practice challenge the received view. His methodology marked a significant extension of the vera causa standard that made it both powerful and practicable. In particular, Bernard emphasized the importance of detection procedures in establishing the existence of unobservable entities. Moreover, his sophisticated notion of controlled experimentation permitted inferences about competence even in complex biological systems. In the life sciences, the vera causa standard began to flourish precisely around the time of its alleged abandonment.
生理学家克劳德·伯纳德（Claude Bernard）是 19 世纪生命科学方法学的重要人物。在这里，我将他的思想置于 vera causa 标准的历史背景下，该标准可以说是 18 世纪和 19 世纪早期科学的主要认识论。其支持者认为，为了使一个原因在科学解释中被合法地援引，必须通过直接证据证明该原因存在并且有能力产生归因于它的影响。科学方法史学家认为，在 19 世纪的过程中， vera causa 标准被一种更强大的后果主义认识论所取代，该认识论也承认存在和能力的间接证据。这方面的主要例子是光以太，尽管缺乏直接证据，但由于它涉及到经过验证的观测后果，特别是成功的新颖预测，因此被广泛接受。根据公认的观点， vera causa 标准对存在和能力的直接证据的要求被视为对合法探究自然精细结构的范围的不切实际和不必要的限制。米尔-惠威尔辩论被认为是这种科学认识论转变的典范，惠威尔的后果主义战胜了米尔对旧标准的辩护。然而，伯纳德对生物实践的反思挑战了公认的观点。他的方法论标志着 vera causa 标准的重大扩展，使其既强大又可行。特别是，伯纳德强调了检测程序在确定不可观察实体存在方面的重要性。此外，他对受控实验的复杂概念允许即使在复杂的生物系统中也可以对能力进行推断。在生命科学中， vera causa 标准正是在其所谓的放弃之时开始蓬勃发展。
