Philosophy
Homeopathy is a vitalist philosophy that interprets diseases and sickness as caused by disturbances in an immaterial vital force or life force. Disturbances are believed to manifest themselves first in mental symptoms, and eventually progress to physical disease if untreated. Homeopathy rejects germ theory, viewing the presence of pathogens as a symptom, rather than cause, of disease.
Homeopathy maintains that the vital force has the ability to react and adapt to internal and external causes, which homeopaths refer to as the "law of susceptibility" (as with the "law of similars" this is a term of art and not a natural law, and it lacks significant scientific acceptance).
The law of susceptibility implies that a negative state of mind can attract hypothetical disease entities called "miasms" to invade the body and produce symptoms of diseases. However, Hahnemann rejected the notion of a disease as a separate thing or invading entity, and insisted it was always part of the "living whole". Hahnemann proposed homeopathy in reaction to the state of traditional Western medicine at that time, which often was brutal and more harmful than helpful. Hahnemann coined the expression "allopathic medicine", which was used to pejoratively refer to traditional Western medicine.
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Famous quotes containing the word philosophy:
“Every philosophy is tinged with the colouring of some secret imaginative background, which never emerges explicitly into its train of reasoning.”
—Alfred North Whitehead (1861–1947)
“While you’re playing cards with a regular guy or having a bite to eat with him, he seems a peaceable, good-humoured and not entirely dense person. But just begin a conversation with him about something inedible, politics or science, for instance, and he ends up in a deadend or starts in on such an obtuse and base philosophy that you can only wave your hand and leave.”
—Anton Pavlovich Chekhov (1860–1904)
“All roads are blocked to a philosophy which reduces everything to the word “no.” To “no” there is only one answer and that is “yes.” Nihilism has no substance. There is no such thing as nothingness, and zero does not exist. Everything is something. Nothing is nothing. Man lives more by affirmation than by bread.”
—Victor Hugo (1802–1885)