Harvey ’ s bloody motion : Creativity in science

In this paper, we show how the discovery of the circulation of the blood by William Harvey (1578-1657) sheds new light on traditional models of creativity in science. In particular, the example illustrates where both the enlightenment and the romantic view on creativity go astray. In the first section, we sketch the two views and present a (non-exhaustive) list of problems for both. In the remainder of the paper, we demonstrate how William Harvey’s discovery, as a historical case study of creativity in science, gives firmer ground to these objections. Our argument goes as follows: First, we show that Harvey is a child of his time as his reasoning is influenced by Aristotle, Galen and the school of Padua (section 2). Second, we indicate how analogies play a considerable role in Harvey’s reasoning aside from their usual argumentative value (section 3). Third, Harvey’s ‘quantitative argument’ captures an inherent struggle and reveals a new take on experiments (section 4). Fourth, we elaborate on the dimension of touch in Harvey’s use of experiments (section 5). Fifth, vivisection as a research method places Harvey for a dilemma (section 6). Sixth, we engage in the discussion of whether Harvey was an Aristotelian or not, not to solve it, but to argue for his particular historical position (section 7). To conclude (section 8), we spell out the effect of this brief analysis for (A) traditional models of creativity in science and (B) Harvey’s historical position. 1. Models of creativity in science When talking about creativity, one traditionally draws the line between a context of discovery, which displays an irrational or ‘Eureka’ moment, and a context of justification, which exhibits a purely rational dynamic. Over the years several critical remarks arose against Hans Reichenbach’s distinction (Reichenbach, 1938). On the one hand, from 1958 onwards with Norwood Russell Hanson’s influential ‘Patterns of discovery’, the distinction came under attack. Many argued that this distinction needed to be refined by introducing an intermediate step. A third context was supposed to cover both the initial theory formation as well as its preliminary evaluation. Richard Tursman speaks of “the logic of pursuit and/or of preliminary evaluation of hypotheses” (Tursman, 1987: 13-14). Ernan McMullin speaks of a “heuristic appraisal”, which regards the research-potential of a theory (McMullin, 1976). Larry Laudan describes the intermediate step as “the context of pursuit” (Laudan, 1977), and Laurie Anne Whitt as “theory promise” or “theory pursuit” (Whitt, 1992) (Seselja & Kosolosky, 2012: 1-2). On the other hand, especially since the 1930’s Karl Popper and several logical positivists (such as Rudolf Carnap and Carl G. Hempel) took over the distinction and insisted that only matters of justification, and not questions of discovery, obtain its place in philosophical discussion (Nickles, 1980: 1-2). 1 We understand discovery here rather straightforward as “a process of thought that leads from (at least partially) observational premises to cognitive conclusions, generally in the form of laws or theories” (Pera, 1987: 177).