Define vitalism. Was Muller a vitalist? Was Helmholtz?
Hermann von Helmholtz was considered as the physiologist of the 19th century that made significant achievements in physiology, physics and psychology. He accepted different concepts of Muller’s conclusions but the Helmholtz and Muller had argued over several disagreements that led to one of them believed in Muller’s concept of work that are known as vitalism.
According to the field in psychology and philosophy, the vitalism-materialism concept was highly considered as the action of mind-body problem. The vitalists suggested that life cannot be described by the interactions of chemical and physical processes. According to vitalists, life acts as a physical process that could not be reduced by much extended processes. Thus, Muller was known as vitalist that studied life force beyond the scope of scientific analysis.
In addition, the materialists described mysterious things about life from the realm of science. There was no doubt to exclude the study of life or nothing else from the realm of science. Thus, Helmholtz was considered as materialist and believed the concept of materialism by enforcing laws to living and non-living things.