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Paris or Berlin? Claude Bernard’s rivalry with Emil du Bois-Reymond

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Abstract

Claude Bernard (1813–1878) and Emil du Bois-Reymond (1818–1896) rank as two of the most influential scientists of the nineteenth century. Renowned for their experiments, lectures, and writing, Bernard and du Bois-Reymond earned great prestige as professors of physiology in a time when Paris and Berlin reigned as capitals of science. Yet even though they were equals in every way, du Bois-Reymond’s reputation has fallen far more than Bernard’s. This essay compares aspects of the two men’s attitudes to philosophy, history, and biology in an attempt to explain why Bernard remains the better known. The answer lies less in the value of du Bois-Reymond’s contributions than in the way that science is remembered in France and Germany.

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Notes

  1. This section draws from my entry on du Bois-Reymond in the Bloomsbury Encyclopedia of Philosophers (2020).

  2. Although he allowed that the task was generally impossible to carry out (Loison 2021, p. 105).

  3. This section draws from Finkelstein (2013, pp. 221–224, 229).

  4. Echoing Goethe (2001, p. 246): “Die Philosophie war also ein mehr oder weniger gesunder und geübter Menschenverstand….” Huxley (1970, p. 45) borrowed from Goethe as well: “Science is, I believe, nothing but trained and organized common sense….”.

  5. Cf. Basler, 1930, p. 144; Helbich, 1997; Klautke, 2003.

  6. For example, he opposed excluding his discipline from the philosophical faculty (1912d, pp. 644–645).

  7. Cf. Porter, 1996; Hultberg, 1997; Burnett, 1999; Ortolano, 2009.

  8. Léon Frédéricq (1897, p. 28) claimed that no one knew the Enlightenment better than du Bois-Reymond, not even in France.

  9. Similarly: “C’est moi qui fonde la Médicine expérimentale, dans son vrai sens scientifique; voilà ma prétention” (Bernard, 1947, p. 51).

  10. This section draws from Finkelstein (2013, pp. 245–248).

  11. See the contribution of Bolduc and Angleraux in this volume.

  12. Cf. Bernard: “This, indeed, is the inevitable progression in the study of all these sciences: 1. Establishing the facts or phenomena through observation and experimentation until all means have been exhausted; 2. Deriving inductively from such facts or phenomena their general relationships; 3. Finally, based on these laws, identifying through logical deductive reasoning other specific facts that can in turn be included in the general law” (Bernard, 1855–1856, 1, p. 14).

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  1. History Department, University of Colorado Denver, 1201 Larimer Street, Denver, CO, 80204, USA

    Gabriel Finkelstein

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Finkelstein, G. Paris or Berlin? Claude Bernard’s rivalry with Emil du Bois-Reymond. HPLS 45, 15 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40656-023-00567-6

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