Editorial

Chaque methode, pour une science donnee, est plus ou moins bien definie par ses propres limites. Ces sortes de frontihes cependant - qu’impose la technologie et au-dela desquelles ]’investigation devient problematique - dependent aussi, et bien souvent dans une mesure comparable, de la nature m&me de l’objet etudie. A cet egard, la biologie nous offre d’innombrables exemples de cette double limitation dans I’experimentation, dependant tout a la fois de la qualite de l’analyse et des caracteristiques du sujet d’observation.

sciences-supports D, disciplines auxiliaires inevi- tables dont depend l’examen de la matiere vivante, la biologie l’est encore par les proprietes mCmes du materiel tres particulier aux depens duquel elle experi- mente. Et I’on peut se demander dans quelle mesure et jusqu’a quel point une technologie donnee est reellement susceptible de permettre la connaissance vraie du vivant. Ce dernier, par sa specificite, sa variabilite, sa dkpendance aussi, n’echappe-t-il pas le plus souvent a une analyse trop fine, trop restreinte et trop astreignante qui, en fin de compte, amenerait le biologiste, non pas a ce qu’il pretend ou espere trouver, mais a ce que son intelligence et ses con- naissances attendent qu’il mette en evidence.

Cela ne signifie pas que I’existence d’une quelconque limite a I’experience condamne - pour cela mSme - cette experience, sa finalite et ses resultats. Aujourd’hui, personne ne conteste plus que la matiere vivante, de par sa com- plexitk, son instabilite aussi, ne peut Stre soumise a une experimentation quelle qu’elle soit. Le biologiste est perplexe lorsqu’il s’interroge sur les limites de sa technologie; il a quelques raisons de se demander parfois dans quelle mesure il ne les a pas depassees . . .

En fait et du point de vue epistemologique, le probleme methodologique pose est d’importance. De toute evidence l’on trouve forcement quelque chose lorsqu’une recherche est entreprise! Mais est-il concevable que le resultat obtenu puisse aisement 2tre vkrifie comme &ant l’expression veridique d’une propriete reelle du vivant? Peut-on, au contraire, et cela parait a premiere vue plus facile, determiner dans quelle mesure et de quelle maniere il n’est pas la

Limitee d’abord par les

Dialectica Vol. 36, No (1982)

4 Editorial

consequence, peut-&tre partielle, de I’intervention directe de I’experience - donc de I’experimentateur - sur le sujet analyse?

C’est un peu de tout cela qu’il sera question dans les divers articles regrou- pes pour ce numero de ((Dialectics)). Tous, face a des domaines de recherche bien concrets et distincts, abordent cette question particulierement essentielle a ceux qui se prkoccupent de biologie, soucieux du choix de la meilleure methode a employer et de I’analyse critique de ses limites.

Lausanne, le 19 avril 1982

*** Paul-Emile Pilet

In science, each method is in some sense confronted by its own limits. These frontiers, however, as imposed by technology and beyond which any field of investigation becomes a problem, also depend - and to a comparable extent - on the nature itself of the object under study.

In this respect, biology offers us numerous examples of this double restric- tion in experimentation which is due, on the whole, to the quality of analysis and to the characteristics of the object under study.

Although biology is first limited by some “support sciences” which are inevitable auxiliary disciplines on which the study of the living material depends, biology becomes even more restricted by the properties themselves of the very particular material on which experimentation is being performed. One can even ask to which extent and up to which point a given technology is liable to produce the real knowledge of the living material. The latter, because of its specificity, its variability and its dependence, finds itself subject to a close analysis, perhaps too restrictive, and demanding as well, which would finally lead the biologist not to what he is expecting or hopes to discover, but to what his intelligence - or at least his knowledge - is expecting to demons- trate.

This does not mean that the existence of any limit, when carrying out an experiment, should condemn - for the above reason -this experiment in its final objective and results. It is clear that today nobody disputes the fact that living material, as witnessed by its complex and changeable nature, cannot be submitted to any form of experimentation. The biologist remains embarrassed when he discerns the limits of his technology and often wonders whether he did not go beyond them.

In fact, from the epistemological point of view, the problem of methodo- logy is an essential one. It is by all means obvious that one always finds out something when an experiment is conducted. But is it conceveable that the

Editorial 5

results obtained can be easily proved as being the truthful expression of the real property of the living material? Could we not, on the contrary - and this appears easier at first sight -, determine to what extent the experimenter may change by his action the results of his experiment?

It is some aspects of these questions which will be treated in all the articles grouped together in this issue of “Dialectica” referring to this concrete field of research. It is in fact an essential question for all those who are concerned about biology and who are all related to the choice of the best method and to the critical analysis of its limits.

Lausanne, April 19, 1982 Paul-Emile Pilet

Dialect ica Vol. 36, No 1 (1982)