Methods, practices, and mutually independent principles [was: Pottyopathy]

[John Harvey]

Hi, Shannon --
It seems to me that the word "principle" and the word "practice" are
easily used on this list to mean a variety of things. One writer may
regard the aim of cure (i.e. a worthy aim) as a principle (or the!)
principle of homoeopathic practice. Another may regard any vague
similarity or correspondence (i.e. a general observation) as a
principle. Principles -- and in the examples that follow, principles
in the homoeopathic context -- are, however, by their nature either

(i) a truth on which other truths depend (such as "Like cures like",
an English shorthand rendition of Hahnemann's Latin principle "Likes
by likes shall be cured", itself shorthand for the general observation
that diseases may be cured by natural or artificial means of similarly
afflicting the already afflicted individual) or

(ii) a determining characteristic or essential quality of a thing
(such as its reliance on a knowledge of the exact kinds of affliction
that a substance may cause in the healthy, as a basis for its
prescription for the afflicted) or

(iii) an accepted or professed rule of action or conduct (such as [a]
the homoeopathic principle that knowledge of the deranging properties
of a substance shall be obtained in the most certain way possible, by
direct observation; the homoeopathic principle of seeking that
substance capable of causing in healthy individuals an affliction most
similar to the affliction the physician is seeking to cure in the
patient; and [c] the homoeopathic principle that the affliction so
matched shall constitute the present totality of the patient's
illness).

Obviously the examples of principles just given under (iii) follow
from the example given under (ii), which follows from that given under
(i), so these different senses of the word "principle" are not
entirely unrelated.

Neither is the other relevant sense of the word entirely unrelated:

(iv) a guiding sense of the requirements and obligations of correct
conduct (such as a guiding sense that saving life by any means is to
be preferred to refusing to adopt different or broader principles; or
a guiding sense that it is preferable to do nothing than to do harm).

This fourth sense (a principle of goodness) has occasionally been
relied upon in this discussion as a principle overriding the other
three (principles of action), as though the other three depend on this
one. And it must be acknowledged that, of the four, this fourth sense
may offer the deepest guide to action. But it cannot override the
meaning of the others.

First, a guiding sense of the requirements and obligations of correct
conduct (iv) is incapable of ever changing an essential truth (i). A
truth -- in other words, a fact -- remains independent of any guide to
our response to it or to anything else. The truth (principle type
) of homoeopathy remains unaffected by whether we should respond to
it in any particular way.

Second, a guiding sense of requirements and obligations (iv) is
incapable of altering any determining characteristic or essential
quality of a thing (ii). It should not need to be pointed out that
anything is essentially what it is, regardless of our desires,
compulsions, or duties to act in a particular manner.

Third, a guiding sense of requirements and obligations (iv) -- though
it may affect fundamentally the acceptability to an individual, a
profession, or a society of a rule of conduct -- is incapable of
affecting a rule of action that follows from and is dependent only on
a thing's determining characteristic or essential quality (iii). To
explore the examples used in principle type (iii) above:

• A guiding sense of requirements and obligations of correct conduct
-- for instance, to save life before following rules -- is incapable
of determining whether the knowledge of the exact kinds of derangement
that a substance may cause in the healthy shall be derivable from
anything less certain than provings of single substances (a).

• A guiding sense of requirements and obligations of correct conduct
is incapable of determining whether it is a homoeopathic principle to
seek the substance most closely similar, in its affliction of the
healthy, to the symptoms of the present patient (b).

• Finally, a guiding sense of requirements and obligations of correct
conduct is incapable of determining whether it is a homoeopathic
principle that the affliction so matched in the patient shall
constitute the totality of the patient's present illness (c).

For these and similar reasons, it would be a nonsense (of the type
sometimes called category mismatch) to state that a principle of type
(iv) alters or could ever alter a defining principle of type (i),
(ii), or (iii).
The various meanings ascribed to "method" in relation to putting the
above defining principles (i) to (iii) into practice can similarly
deceive. What is a method? In the context of a method of practising
homoeopathy according to its principles (as exemplifed above) -- as
opposed to a method of practising good medicine, which is quite
another discussion -- a method must consist of means of implementing,
at minimum, principles of homoeopathic (as opposed to good medical)
practice.

But the word "method" and the word "practice" have been used
synonymously to denote quite other things, including means to cure the
patient, means to help the patient, and means to implement a
"principle" of "likes" without yet any clear expression but that might
be expressed, "Something like something else can have power over it"
-- looking remarkably like sympathetic magic.

Clearly, if homoeopathic practice has principles, then its methods
must be methods of implementing them, and any methods that violate
them cannot be homoeopathic.

So the choice of consulting Kent's or von Boenninghausen's or Roger
van Zandvoort's repertory, or asking around amongst one's colleagues
or dearly departed, is a choice of methods in some attempt to select
and expand upon a field of candidates for the substance with greatest
pathogenetic similarity to the relevant totality, in accordance with a
principle of homoeopathy. (Some methods will obviously be better than
others.)

The choice of whether one then consult's Kent's, Clarke's, or Julian's
materia medica, or all three, or another dozen "pure" materia medicae,
is a choice of methods in some attempt to find the particular remedy
candidate that makes the best symptomatic match, in accordance with a
principle of homoeopathy.

But the choice of whether one consults a pure materia medica at all or
chooses to believe that the pathogenesis of a substance can be deduced
from its chemical, physical, and taxonomic properties is not a choice
between methods of implementing principles of homoeopathy.

Neither is the choice of whether the similarity one seeks in a
substance's pathogenesis be to the patient's disease totality or to a
single symptom (or even to perfectly healthy characters!) a choice
between methods of implementing principles of homoeopathy.

Each is a choice between implementing a principle of homoeopathy and
not doing so.

The question whether a method of violating principles of homoeopathy
may be a method of implementing a principle superior to those
principles is an important one -- but it cannot affect what
homoeopathy is. The principles of homoeopathy stand independent of
principles of good medical practice; independent of overarching
considerations of the good; independent even of whatever broader and
deeper truths may be discovered.

Even should the "fundamental truth" (exemplified in discussion of
principle type above) one day be shown to be a profound falsehood,
it is in homoeopathy's nature -- it is of its very essence -- to
depend on that truth. Therefore, even if something so profound should
occur as the discovery that like is sometimes cured, not by like, but
by intention or by well-motivated but completely incompetent guesswork
-- even though this will show homoeopathy to have been based on false
principles -- it can never in any way change what those principles
are.

Obviously, no other finding, no other truth, less radical could do so either.

The nature of homoeopathy is not determined by overarching principles
of healing; by findings of fact; by good intentions; by seductive
analogies; by experience; by invention; or by what is advisable, wise,
or good. Its nature is determined by its principles, which define it.
Its methods are already many, and many yet remain to be invented;
but, for all of the above reasons, all of them must accord with its
principles. A method or practice of homoeopathy not according with
its principles is but an oxymoron.

Kind regards,

John
--
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"We have also arranged things so that almost no one understands
science and technology. This is a prescription for disaster. We
might get away with it for a while, but sooner or later this
combustible mixture of ignorance and power is going to blow up in our
faces."

-- Carl Sagan

[Shannon Nelson]

Hi John,
It's true the words can get slippery...
And that is precisely and only the one that I've been talking about in
that post...
An aim is an aim, not a principle; a practice is a practice, not a
principle.
Right, as I said.
And I noted that Hahnemann himself extended the observation to cure of
burns thru application of heat; I feel that the (progress toward)
emotional cure via empathy with others' similar situations is not
unrelated. I don't want to belabor that, tho... I simply found it
interesting.

The rest of your points I will have to read in the morning; but this is
the definition that seems relevant.
Best,
Shannon