I have come to the conclusion that many of those who enter into the chiropractic debate do not have a problem with our philosophy. They do not mind the major premise or the use of deductive reasoning from that major premise. They are even okay with the idea that there is an innate intelligence that runs and heals the body from conception to death. I have never seen any surveys on the subject, but I would imagine that the percentage of chiropractors who recognize a metaphysical concept in the human organism is about the same as the percentage of the public who acknowledges a deity (about 80%). The problem is they do not mind us having a philosophy as long as we do not allow it to impact our profession or its practice. We can have our philosophical belief, we just cannot talk about it or allow it to impact our practice. Sometimes they will use the argument of being scientific as the reason for ignoring the philosophy. Philosophy is, well, philosophy. It is not science.
However, scientists do not function outside the realm of philosophy. They have a philosophy. Unfortunately, too often it is the philosophy of scientism which is really dogma, something that no true scientists would care to be accused of embracing. Ayn Rand says that everyone has a philosophy. The only question is whether you are acting according to your philosophy or not. If not, you are acting according to an aphilosophical philosophy, which is still a philosophy. The aphilosophical chiropractor is like the atheist who says he does not believe in God. That is a belief in something or more correctly a belief in non-something which is the definition of a religion. So atheism is a religion. The best that an atheist can do is use rationalism and say that evidence does not demonstrate deity, but that is agnosticism. Unfortunately for them, there is at least as much evidence to indicate the existence of deity as not. The best the agnostic can say is, “I don’t know.” In fact that is pretty much the definition of agnosticism.
In chiropractic we describe the two contrasting philosophies this way: our philosophy is an above-down-inside-out philosophy (ADIO). It is the philosophy that incorporates the vitalistic phenomena that something greater than our finite, educated mind runs the universe as a whole and our body in particular. The other is an outside-in philosophy. This philosophy believes that man can run the human body and that there is nothing greater than man’s educated mind.
Any debate in chiropractic must first begin with a philosophical base. Our objective is philosophical: do we base our objective on a medical philosophy or do we embrace one that is different, one that is based upon an ADIO philosophy? Our technique is philosophical: are we dealing with a purely mechanical technique, or is there a metaphysical component to what we are doing with our hands? The restoration of the mental impulse is philosophical. There is a metaphysical component to the impulse that travels over the nerve system. Our science is physics and metaphysics whether some want to admit it or not.
The chiropractic profession stripped of its philosophy is not merely lacking something, something that can be set aside in the reductionist model. The chiropractic philosophy stripped of its philosophy is lacking everything, everything that gives it meaning, purpose and definition. V24n4