Editor's Note
This paper discusses the Logic of Homeopathy and how using its simple natural logic of Individualization and Similarity of Symptoms we can combat COVID-19 disease.
Abstract
It is well known that Logic is the science of forms and laws of intellect. It is the science of judgment and reasoning. At the same time reasoning is the intellectual ability through which conclusions are drawn from reasoning propositions with a combination of thoughts. The entire history of Logic's evolution as a science has been shaped throughout the struggle between materialism and idealism. Yet, generally speaking it represents the review and the conclusion coming from the history of knowledge of the world. In addition to this, it teaches us how a judgment is drawn and approached by other judgments. Any conclusion process is based on syllogism. That is why, logic is also called "the science of conclusions".
Introduction
In ancient Greece the science of Logic constituted a particular method of combat which put opposite opinions in confrontation. Its history though starts from Aristotle who attributed the discovery of "inductive definitions" and "definitions through concepts" to Socrates. 1 Aristotle, creator of the typical logic, worded its axioms, studied the intellect and its laws systematically, classified judgments, worded the theory of syllogisms. The typical Aristotelian Logic included four fundamental laws of intellect.
The law of identity.
According to that one any concept must be identical to itself. The law of identity requires by any judgment and any reasoning to use the concept with only one meaning which must be always the same. The law of contradiction. This law forbids the logical contradiction to intellect. In other words, judgments and syllogisms mustn't contain contradictions.
The law of divergence of the third.
According to that one between two judgments – when one confirms something and the other denies it- the correct one must be either the one or the other. Any third one is not accepted as correct.
The law of the sufficient reason.
This law imposes to any judgment or reasoning to begin from proofs, in other words from another judgment or reasoning which are proved to be correct and that it uses as "major" premise.
Typical Logic engages itself into the various forms of evolution of the intellect. Concepts, judgments and syllogisms are the forms which constitute the three basic stages as much of intellect as of the typical Logic. Finally, it deals with the ways and principles of proof in the logical thought. In contemporary times, Logic as a science had a new progress thanks to the development of experimental sciences. A special role in this field was played by Bacon, creating a system of rules and action modes which allow us to reach general concepts starting from individual, particular facts. The inductive logic –meaning the extraction of general conclusions by partial ones- is interested in facts, reality and its primary scope is, like mathematics, to discover and use the truth. For this reason, it needs:
- Precise observation.
- Correct interpretation of the observed fact with such an opinion for its understanding in relation to anything else and its causes.
- Rational explanation of the fact with regards to the real cause or principle.
- Scientific conclusion placing the facts so harmoniously that the system agrees with reality. The contrary of the inductive logic is the Reductive one, which allows us to extract a particular conclusion from a general proposition of reasoning, in other words the conclusion is being extracted from the general to the particular.
Logic and Homeopathy
Homeopathic therapeutics was founded and based upon these principles. All thinking processes in order to be correct and righteously executed, must be led by Logic's principles and methods, which means the following must be valid:
Precise observation.
Hahnemann's disappointment about the therapeutic system of his age, as it was applied in the 18th century, had as a result the sophistication of his ability to observe and judge. The observation of the doctor's frequent failure to cure patients in simple cases without complications led him to abandon the medical practice and start translating great medical manuscripts. He began to experiment as soon as his attention was drawn by the use of cinchona's cortex for the treatment of recurrent fever.
Correct interpretation.
The correct interpretation of what was presented by provings was given by the study of a series of those groups of people. So, the probability of errors was limited by the accumulation of more and more elements. In addition to this, the diverse symptoms which were concentrated by various provers were considered to be the symptoms of that particular substance. As I already mentioned, the law of similar comes from ancient times. It was known to Hippocrates, later to Stall and other scientists. Yet, whereas that thought was being applied occasionally, Hahnemann was the first one to insist on the importance of that therapy proposal to try pharmaceutical substances by applying the results with that scope.
Scientific interpretation.
Hahnemann applied these principles which had evolved upon his inductive syllogism and the experiments carried out by him with a real scientific interpretation.
What is more, various other principles of Homeopathy lie upon Logic. Those other principles are:
Peculiar conclusions.
Logic with analysis, synthesis, comparison and generalization processes may determine the relative value and importance of every symptom. Thus, it provides with the means of discovering "those peculiar symptoms" which are of great importance for the case study. Peculiar symptoms are general ones or generalizations which are drawn to conclusions or extracted with logical generalization processes by other local symptoms.
For example, when we study the medicine Medorrhinum we find that the symptoms which it covers agree that they are best for the patient when the patient is near the sea. That is why improvement is observed.
The Pathological Unity of Symptoms.
The inductive method supplies the pathological unit of symptoms on which the disease consists and from which we can recognize the various forms it is going to acquire. Any disease manifests externally with properties' discontinuities determined by points and symptoms. If we look at them separately and regardless of the individuality of the general pathological situation they represent, we can set the disease's symptoms in arithmetical order, just like words in a dictionary, and choose whichever drugs with a simple comparison. However, in this way we are going to operate only locally; as a result, no symptom -if taken alone- covers the inviduality of the disease or the medicine (homeopathic). Any disease, is the result of action upon the organism of a certain or some harmful factors, either natural (cold, heat, radiation, injury etc.) or chemical (poisons, drugs etc.), or biological (microbes, viruses etc.) or even psychological (stress, frustration, disappointment, sadness etc.), and of cofactors also, while the phenomena of their action as a whole provide invidualized general characteristics.
Thanks to these ones, we recognize, name and classify diseases and homeopathic remedies. Names such as gingivitis, pneumonia, neoplasia, represent pathological entities whose general features are stable at all ages and countries. They owe their existence to causes which are often stable although local symptoms along with their points may vary depending on the case and the period. So, in order to recognize those pathogenic and pathological types we resort to the procedure of inductive reason, meaning to observation and collection of local facts and situations which allow us to reach a perception of nature and of group's individual character by the generalization process.
The set of symptoms.
Logic is again the one making the perception of the referred set or the picture of case's symptoms easy. It unveils the case thus building the set. It determines every detail in its correct position and gives a specific form to the case, so as to be conceived by the mind as a whole.
The generalization technique.
Generalization is the procedure during which is achieved a general perception, rule or law from the study of local elements or phenomena. So, the Law of similars that was generated by the human mind is a quite thorough generalization.
The law of the Cause.
Logic occupies an important place in Medicine, regarding the issue of determining the disease's causes on which therapy is based as much as possible. Quite a few mistakes and failures in therapeutics in general are due to an erroneous perception and the incorrect application of the principle of logic, known as the law of explanation. "Every result must have a cause". In practice, though, it seems that every result has a number of causes which should be taken into account in order to draw correct conclusions, since the disease behaves like a chaotic dynamic system. Covid-19 disease for example, is an infectious disease that may predominate on a group of people and coronavirus of this disease might lie in many healthy men's throats. But if these people have a high or sufficient resistance to the coronavirus action are going to avoid the disease as they don't allow the virus to develop and consequently aren't sensible towards the infection. Here, there isn't the necessary combination of positive factors for the virus. As a result, the power of the virus in our example is relative and depending, not absolute. It might exist, which means it can be traced, but it can't develop.
It seems ultimately that classical homeopathy is the therapeutic science of individualization. It directs its effort not towards the elimination of the immediate natural cause of the disease, as we know, but towards the disease itself, which is a harmful procedure, like the one manifesting with discontinuities of the organism's properties, points and symptoms. By using "similar" medicines which can, on conditions, cause a reverse action on the organism –similar in matters of nature to the one of the pathogenic cause-, it neutralizes the results emerging from the effect of the pathogenic cause, thus restoring in this way balance in the system, in other words health.
So, Homeopathy as a rational therapeutic system must be immediately adopted to combat the Covid -19 pandemic by the Public health systems.
References
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Kalliantas D. The Chaos Theory of Disease, Kallianta A Publications, Eleusis Greece (2008) ↩
