Constructing a philosophy of chiropractic: evolving worldviews and modern foundation

Abstract

Objective

The purpose of this article is to trace the foundations of DD Palmer's sense of self and philosophy of chiropractic to its sources in modern Western philosophy as well as current metatheories about modernity.

Discussion

DD Palmer's sense of self was indicative of a modern self. A modern self is characterized as a self that developed after the Western Enlightenment and must come to terms with the insights of modernity such as Cartesian dualism, Spinoza's substance, Rousseau's expressivism, and Kant's critiques. It is argued that Palmer's philosophy can be viewed as part of the this tradition alongside his involvement in the 19th century American metaphysical religious culture, which was itself a response to these challenges of the modern self of modernity.

Conclusion

Palmer's development of chiropractic and its philosophy was a reaction to the challenges and promises of modernity.

Chiropractic and its philosophy reflect the worldviews of the modern era. Chiropractic's founder, DD Palmer (1845-1913), was a modern man, with a modern sense of self, which is most evident in his writings.¹ Palmer's definition of Innate Intelligence (II) is the best example of this modern foundation. Within the definition of II is a separation of body (matter), mind (educated intelligence), soul (intelligent life), and spirit (Innate). Although aspects of this definition such as soul and spirit have roots in premodern worldviews, such distinctions between the domains of body, mind, and spirit are hallmarks of the modern worldview. The inclusion of these domains in the philosophy of chiropractic can be viewed as an attempt to integrate them and heal the mind/body split inherent to Western philosophy and the modern worldview. Palmer's approach was to apply the objective empiricism of modernity to subjective experience as well as objective facts. Applying an objective stance to interior illumination was common to Palmer's time because it was a reaction to the overreliance on rationality and its dismissal of subjectivity in the modern world.

Palmer's philosophical approach has endured extensive criticism within the chiropractic profession since its earliest days.^2,3 Many critics in the chiropractic profession have sought to minimize this integrative approach and focus instead on the body and on measurable objective phenomena.^4-9 Such critiques often perpetuate the modern worldview rather than attempt to confront the problems with the modern worldview as Palmer did. Retrospectively, we can acknowledge that Palmer's philosophy involved 5 methodological approaches in his attempt to include body, mind, soul, and spirit through science, art, and philosophy. The legacy he left to the chiropractic profession was visionary and also fraught with confusing terminology, which led to some of the contentious intraprofessional debates over the last 100+ years.

In the first article in this series,¹⁰ 8 methodological approaches to knowledge acquisition were described: phenomenology, developmental structuralism, autopoiesis theory, empiricism, cultural anthropology, hermeneutics, systems theory, and social autopoiesis theory. These 8 methodological families represent 8 dimensions of reality for any sentient being. Integral Theory is a map of these dimensions, which assumes that each dimension has a method through which its distinct aspect of reality can be disclosed. Integral Methodological Pluralism (IMP) is a map of those 8 methods.^11,12 Using more methods in constructing a philosophy of chiropractic leads to more valid truth claims and thus a more holistic or integral philosophy. It was further demonstrated that the 4 methodological families least addressed in the literature on the philosophy of chiropractic were developmental structuralism, phenomenology, cultural anthropology, and hermeneutics. The current article continues from the last article¹³ by establishing a historical perspective or genealogical view of the cultural and hermeneutical worldviews chiropractic emerged from, with an emphasis on the modern foundation of chiropractic's philosophical theories.

The emphasis of this article is on the modern worldview because Palmer was a product of modern times, confronting the challenges of modernity such as the mind/body split. This article will demonstrate that Palmer attempted to develop a new philosophy with a practice by including 5 of the methodological families: phenomenology (with his emphasis on the validity of interior knowledge), autopoiesis theory (with his emphasis on II as the internal organizing force in living systems), systems theory (with his holistic approach to the body and the individual in general), empiricism (with his reliance on objective empirical facts), and hermeneutics (with his attempt to create a moral and religious culture aimed at physical and spiritual evolution). This is not to suggest that Palmer used these specific methods or that he systematically developed each of these 5 areas (he did not); it merely suggests that he addressed the perspectives that these methodological families represent. By taking this approach to Palmer's philosophy and his development of early chiropractic, it becomes obvious that the other 3 methodological families (developmental structuralism, cultural anthropology, and social autopoiesis theory) are missing from his approach. This does not diminish the validity of his philosophy, but it does point to ways in which it could become more whole and through which a philosophy of chiropractic can be more integrally constructed. Furthermore, a more systematic development of the 5 areas he did address using the methodologies appropriate to each would develop the philosophy of chiropractic even further.

Chiropractic's early meteoric growth and relatively quick establishment as a major force in health care have not been adequately explained in the literature. Much of that growth can be attributed to Palmer's visionary approach to addressing modernity's greatest flaws and harnessing its greatest gifts. A better understanding of the foundation of his approach will help us to more completely understand chiropractic and construct its philosophy in a more rigorous way.

Hallmarks of modernity

The modern era really begins with the Western Enlightenment. The era is characterized by rational worldviews and a unique self-identity, which were reflected in the philosophies that arose during this time, leading to the separation of the value spheres of science, art, and morals. Selfhood in modernity has several attributes as noted by Gebser¹⁴ in terms of the ability to use the Mental-Rational structure of consciousness and 3-dimensional perspectives and by Taylor¹⁵ in terms of the ability to use radical reflexivity, disengaged reason, and view oneself as separate from nature. Palmer's writings show that he had all of these attributes.¹ By studying the philosophers who had the greatest impact on the shaping of the modern identity, such as Descartes, Spinoza, Leibniz, Berkeley, Hume, Locke, Rousseau, and Kant along with other vitalist and Enlightenment philosophers such as Mesmer and Swedenborg, Stahl, and Buffon, we can better understand these unique attributes of modernity, especially in terms of the separation of the value spheres of art, science, and morals. This separation of the value spheres is, according to many scholars,^14-18 the hallmark of the modern era and its greatest challenge.

Chiropractic and its philosophy were attempts to integrate the big three of philosophy: The Good (morality and religion), The True (science and objective empiricism), and The Beautiful (art and spirituality), which were now differentiated for the first time in history.^19,20 Chiropractic was an attempt to bring these 3 together in the form of science, art, and philosophy and to heal the mind/body split. DD Palmer wrote, “This philosophy will make the junction between the physical and the spiritual comprehensive; it will advance mankind mentally, physically and spiritually.”^1(p818) Palmer chose to confront this differentiation of modern consciousness by creating a system of integration, with hopes of furthering the advance of humanity to a new place, one that incorporated body, mind, soul, and spirit. Evident in his writings on philosophy is the impact of the philosophers of modernity, the modern worldview they represented, and the self that emerged with their writings, or the modern identity.

American philosopher Ken Wilber has developed IMP, a philosophical model, which draws from all known methodological approaches to knowledge acquisition, in an attempt to integrate these value spheres of art, science, and morals. This approach draws from the truths and validity claims of the premoderm, the modern, and the postmodern worldviews.^12,17,20-22 Wilber's Integral approach is ideal for interpreting, understanding, and forwarding the philosophy of chiropractic because DD Palmer's creation of chiropractic and its' philosophy was also an attempt to include premodern and modern truths from a postmodern perspective.^10,19

Wilber explains the real impact of the modern self in terms of the “dignity and disaster” of modernity²²: dignity in the form of individual freedoms, which led to things like democracy, civil rights, and an end to slavery, and disaster in the form of the disassociation of the value spheres of morals, science, and art, which has led to things like environmental destruction, gross human rights abuses, and genocide.²⁰ The task of the modern self is to reconcile the new individual self-identity with modernity itself. As Wilber notes, this can only be accomplished by including the 4 dimensions of the self: consciousness “I,” body/behavior “It,” culture “We,” and social economic circumstances “Its,”(Fig 1) which is an integration of the big three (Goodness, Truth, and Beauty).²¹ (Fig 2) Wilber's four quadrants have been applied to constructing a philosophy of chiropractic by suggesting that the inside and outside of each quadrant be included in any such construction, hence the 8 zones and the 8 methodological families¹⁰ (Fig 3).

Fig 1.

Quadrants. Adapted from Wilber.^12(p30)

Fig 2.

Quadrants. Adapted from Wilber.^12(p30)

Fig 3.

Four quadrants with chiropractic examples.^10(p10)

As a product of the end of the American 19th century, DD Palmer's self was confronted with a situation unique in history. He was immersed in a culture and society struggling with both the dignities and the disasters of modernity. In that context, Palmer developed chiropractic, its philosophy, and its profession in a surprisingly integral fashion.

The American metaphysical culture and, by default, its citizens were trying to come to terms with the dignity and disaster of modernity. The society of late 19th century America was still reeling from the devastations of the American Civil War, with more than 600 000 dead.²³ In fact, Palmer's second wife Louvenia, the mother of his 3 children, May, Jessie, and BJ Palmer, was a widow of a soldier when he married her in 1876. Soon after her death, in 1884, DD Palmer began studying Spiritualism and magnetic healing.²⁴ Palmer, like the rest of his culture and society, drew upon the new strengths of Western science, while exploring ways to overcome the inherent split between body and mind that those strengths implied. To do this, he drew from an older stream of thinking in the West,^25-27 one that informed many philosophers from Spinoza to Schelling and was evident in the teachings of Spiritualism and magnetic healing.¹³ DD Palmer used the knowledge he acquired during his 9 years of practice as a magnetic healer and developed his own healing art (chiropractic), drawing from the latest advances in science²⁸ and the rich metaphysical culture he was immersed in.^26,27

The influence of the metaphysical religious culture on DD Palmer

The metaphysical religious culture was a pragmatic mix of the teachings of Anton Mesmer and Immanuel Swedenborg, thinkers from the Western Enlightenment.^27,29-31 Spiritualism, a blend of their systems, was, according to BJ Palmer, what his father “leaned to.” BJ wrote, “D. D. Palmer followed no sect, creed, or denomination. If he leaned to any, it was to principle of spiritualism, and then only to its religious aspect.” ^32(p64) Spiritualism offered a way for individuals to commune with the infinite in the practical experiences of healing, coming to terms with death, and conceiving of an interconnected cosmos with the human self as a part and parcel of the universe. The Spiritualist Manual published in 1911 shows an elected officer as early as 1894, in Davenport, Iowa, Palmer's hometown that year. In the manual's declaration of principles, written by Joseph Whitwell, it starts:

By this we express our belief in a supreme Impersonal Power, everywhere present, manifesting as life, through all forms of organized matter, called by some, God, by others, Spirit and by Spiritualists, Infinite Intelligence.^33(p38)

This definition is very similar to Palmer's definition of Universal Intelligence (UI). The spiritualists blended the traditions of the magic and mythic structures of consciousness with the mental-rational structure of consciousness by assuming that the medium through which spirit communication and healing occurred was based on Mesmer's energetic ether. For many of them, this was practical and empirically verified through experience.²⁷ DD Palmer is an example of this approach. In 1906, he wrote:

I know from daily experience, of which my five senses are in evidence, that some persons who have lived in this life continue in intelligent existence. My spiritual knowledge has come to be material, for it is an expression of consciousness by all of my five senses. There are many forms of material, as judged by our sensory faculties.^34(p105)

More important than his spiritualist belief in the afterlife was the influence of the spiritualist religious tradition on his beliefs about II, his daily experience, and his personal development. DD Palmer's son BJ contested to this. BJ writes:

Father was a spiritualist as a religion, not as a return of spirits of departed, which gathered around a séance table at $1 per, who retained thru some “control” thru a “medium.” Let us interject. Father belonged to no church, creed, or denomination. He was a profound skeptic. Spiritualism came as near as any to supporting what he believed.^32(p70)

The development of Palmer's sense of self may have been influenced by such beliefs and experiences. The elder Palmer may not have attended séances, but he did walk for miles to spiritualist gatherings.²⁴ According to Eugene Taylor, such gatherings were “one of the more interesting chapters in the early history of group psychotherapy.”^30(p138) In such circles, individuals would learn to listen to their own inner stirrings of spirit and connect with their own inner depths by “letting go,”^30(p139) similar to the techniques required for hypnosis and classical psychoanalysis.³⁰ Palmer's personal growth and development were most likely furthered through such group meetings, along with his personal practice of magnetic healing and the cultivation of altered states associated with his “daily experiences” noted in the quote above.^22,35,36 It would take regular contemplative practices, along with other modes of accessing one's inner reservoirs, to come up with a system as far-reaching as Palmer's.

Palmer eventually sought to explain the soul, the universe, all matter, healing, morals, science, curing social and psychological ills, and the hereafter in his definition of chiropractic and its philosophy. He wrote:

As a science chiropractic explains local and general death to be—but the result of law, a step on the road of eternal progression; that any deviation from tone, the basis of chiropractic, is disease.

As a philosophy it is the science of all sciences. It deals with subjective, ethical religion—the science which treats of the existence, character and attributes of God, the All-pervading Universal Intelligence. Its possibilities will become unlimited, when His laws and our duties as a segmented, personified, portion thereof, are scientifically understood. It will lessen disease, poverty and crime, empty our jails, penitentiaries and insane asylums and assist us to prepare for the existence beyond the transition called death.^1(p11)

Alongside his studies of anatomy and physiology,²⁸ he studied spiritualist, magnetic healing, and philosophical texts, dating as far back as 1870, with the majority of the texts dating to the 1880s. The books and pamphlets, known as DD Palmer's Traveling Library, are filled with explanations about magnetic healing, philosophical approaches to health and disease, morals, and spiritualism, some of which contained detailed meditative practices.^19,26,37 His earliest writings also represent these influences.³⁸ Palmer was ahead of his time because of his embodied inclusion of science and spirituality.

DD Palmer's views of Innate

Palmer did not limit his philosophy to the Spiritualist and magnetic healing ideas. This is especially important as we distinguish his ideas from the premodern views as described in the previous article¹³ but also with his break with the modern views of his own time. Fuller writes:

Palmer's claim to originality lies in his interest in discovering the precise physiological routes through which the individualized segments of divine spirit, Innate, directs the life process within the individual. Palmer asserted that Innate generates life impulses through the medium of the brain, which in turn transmits them along nerve pathways to their different peripheral endings. Contemporary chiropractors have largely abandoned Palmer's metaphysical theories for a material-cause explanation of chiropractic adjusting practices.^39(p72)

Palmer's premodern leanings are evident in his definition of UI as Spirit, God, the “All-Wise, the Eternal.”^1(p728) But his separation of mind and body; his view that spirit, soul, and mind were “distinct from matter”^1(p728); and his view that Spirit was manifested through matter and through the body along the nerves were distinctly modern.

Innate was defined as that aspect of Spirit that became individualized. It was viewed as a “primal source of energy,” “directed through the nervous system,”^1(p239) and the “intelligence manifested as the conductor of life”.^1(p524) This manifestation of spirit happened most readily when released to vibrate through or over the nervous system free from impingements or pressure, hence chiropractic's reason for being. DD Palmer writes:

By Innate I refer to that intelligence which is born with and within us, and which continues to furnish vitality to our bodies as long as life lasts. Nature does not include that ever-present intelligence which exists as a separate entity. Instinct is an inward impulse without reason; it prompts our actions. Subconscious mind is a product of Innate, vital phenomena occurring without consideration. Intuition is an apprehension or recognizance without reason. None of these terms expressed the precise meaning I wanted to convey. I, therefore, chose the word Innate, meaning born with.^1(p662)

These terms already had definitions; and none of them captured what he meant by the spiritual entity, which was “the proprietor of a being possessing life.”^1(p525) The Innate comes into possession of the body not as an outgrowth of the mother but as a portion of the Universal, of Spirit, at birth.

Spirit and Matter were distinct for DD Palmer. Spirit is eternal and perfect, directing and manifesting through the matter. Matter is changing and transient. Palmer writes:

Man in his physical nature embodies the elements of the material universe. The spiritual controls the individualized portion we designate as an individual. The spirit manifests itself through the physical as a conscious intelligence. In the physical, man is of the earth, earthy. The spiritual is an individualized portion of Universal Intelligence—God—just as the material man is a portion of the material universe.^1(p695)

Innate gathers the information of the lifetime from the Educated Intelligence, which, as mind, is dependent on Innate. According to Palmer, the Innate (spirit or the immaterial vital force that runs the body) is united with the body (matter) by the soul (the intelligent life), which “holds body and spirit together.”^1(p19)

DD Palmer's view of the soul

Soul was very important to Palmer's philosophy. If quantity is any measure of importance, a search of the 1921 compilation of his 2 books (more than 900 pages) is significant because it leads to 89 mentions of II, 60 mentions of soul, and only 30 mentions of UI. (It should also be noted that the term Innate by itself was mentioned 275 times.)⁴⁰ Palmer writes, “If the reader will turn to all the places where soul is mentioned, I think that he will get a satisfactory comprehension of what I understand the soul consists.”^1(p166) It is in this context that we can understand why Palmer believed “the soul (the life) is the symphysis which unites Spirit and Body.”^41(p673) He also referred to this soul as “Intelligent Life.”^1(p165) The soul is the result of the immaterial combining with the material because it is what links them. For him, chiropractic was “founded upon” the triad that brings the Spiritual and Physical together: “Innate-soul-body.”^1(p673) This is important because it represents Palmer's attempt to reconcile the mind/body split inherent to modernity in an embodied way. The soul is the “vital,” and “it consists of expressed functional energy.”^1(p165) It is synonymous with life.

The main gist of Palmer's approach suggests that spirit, soul, mind, and body are separate. Spirit, referring to the All-Wise UI, can be individualized as Innate and manifest through a body or matter. The result is the soul, an intelligent life, an entity that directs the body's functions through or over the nervous system via vibration. Palmer writes:

Spirit, soul, mind and body are separate and distinct entities. An entity is a being, whether in thought or in fact. Spirit. Universal, is the sum total of the conscious intelligent element or factor manifested in the universe. Individualized spirit is the segmented portion embodied in each individual. The body, as an entity, is the organized substance which we recognize as a human being. The mind is the intellectual part, that which is conscious, that which understands, reasons, wills and thinks. The soul is intelligent life—life guided by intelligence. It resides throughout the body wherever life is manifested.^1(p165)

The chiropractic adjustment releases impingements and/or pressure on the nervous system. Life, guided by intelligence (soul via Innate), is expressed in healthy tissues as tone, which can be detected through touch. The soul and the body combine to form the mind, which helps the organism to interact with the world and adapt. Innate lives on and brings with it all that the mind has learned. Physical, mental, and spiritual evolution in this life and the next was DD Palmer's vision for chiropractic.

Modernity: chiropractic's foundation

Chiropractic can be understood in light of the legacy of the Enlightenment in the West and the worldviews and self-identities that resulted from it. Chiropractic was a reaction to the self of modernity, an attempt to bridge the mind/body split described and brought forth by the modern philosophers and the self they bequeathed to the future. Roots to DD Palmer's UI and II can be located throughout philosophy.¹³ However, it is in the modern philosophers that we get closer to his personal worldview, the foundations of his identity. In the late modern authors, we can see Palmer's most profound insights about evolution and the correspondence between the individual and the universe, as well as his early postmodern ideas. In his essence as an individual; he was distinctly modern, confronting the disassociation of the value spheres as well as the individuality associated with the nature of the self of modernity. No historical or philosophical writings about chiropractic can be complete without coming to terms with chiropractic's emergence as a unique attempt to heal the fractures of the consciousness of the self in Western culture.

The modern self was defined and established into a worldview by the leading philosophers of modernity: Descartes, Spinoza, Leibniz, Locke, Berkeley, Hume, Rousseau, and Kant. Because of what they accomplished, Palmer was able to propose a self that was defined by its role in unifying the immaterial and material, a reflection of the oneness of Spiritual and Physical or Innate and Body.

The unique self of modernity was the result of a turning within through the use of rationality. The movement from the “ontic-logos” of the Greeks, where ultimate sources of Goodness and morality were found outside of the self, changed with Augustine's self-reflection and discovery of the “I,” what Taylor refers to as “radical reflexivity.”¹⁵ This shift in identity of the self was an important step in the development of the modern self, which was taken up by all major philosophers thereafter. Taylor writes:

This is what distinguishes the classical writers from followers of Descartes, Locke, Kant, or just about anyone in the modern world. The turn to oneself is now also and inescapably a turn to oneself in the first-person perspective—a turn to the self as a self. That is what I mean by radical reflexivity.^15(p176)

It is this legacy of the West that will help us more fully understand Palmer's reaction to this new self, which he embodied.

The Rationalists

The Rationalists are best represented by Descartes, Spinoza, and Leibniz. They sought the answers of philosophy in pure rationality. In Renee Descartes (1596-1650), we find an extension of Augustine's “radical reflexivity.” As noted in the first article,¹³ Augustine stopped his ascent to God within at the “I.” Augustine still participated in the “ontic-logos” of the Greeks; that is, he still viewed the sources of morality as exterior. Descartes found the sources of morality within. He begins by doubting everything and stops at the final conclusion to his skepticism, with the remaining notion, “I think, therefore I am.” Taylor calls Descartes' move “disengaged reason”^15(p143) or an ability to imagine oneself completely separate from nature.

Descartes broke through Augustine's “arrested ascent.”²¹ Descartes no longer has the need to locate the source of Morality in God or the Ideal Forms of Plato or the One of Plotinus, or even in Nature such as Boehme or Bruno. Descartes acknowledges God must exist. The only other thing he can be sure exists is his mind. For the first time, the mind and nature can be reasoned as separate. The mind/body split, which has its roots in the rationality of the ancient Greeks, is now complete. The source of Goodness or morality can now be found within. Individuals can look to the individual self for the first time to find answers to moral questions. Philosophy and the self were forever changed.

Spinoza and Leibniz both responded to Descartes in different ways. Baruch Spinoza (1632-1677) transcended Descartes' dualism by uniting it to Plotinus and suggesting that all matter and mind were the substance of God. Gottfried Leibniz (1646-1716) did not like either Descartes' materialism or Spinoza's monism. He united their systems with Aristotle's entelechy by suggesting that there were forms “monads,” which were aspects of the one form, “Monad,” or God, yet within each thing was the Ideal Form. Leinbiz's approach was an advance on Aristotle who viewed the Forms as “ontic” or outer, rather than inner, which was only possible after Augustine's invention of “I”¹⁵ and Descartes splitting “I” from nature.

Thus, we can see a clearer foundation of Palmer's views. The idea that body, mind, soul, and spirit are “separate and distinct entities”^1(p165) can be attributed in part to Descartes' splitting of mind and body and severing the “I” from nature. The idea that UI permeates all matter can be attributed to Spinoza. Yet the idea of II, as within, as a part of the substance of UI, which was united by life's intelligence with matter, is closer to Leibniz's concept of Monad and smaller monads. DD Palmer's philosophical insights were products of his time and thus indirectly influenced by the philosophers who helped to shape the self and the worldview of his time.

The Empiricists

Locke, Berkeley, and Hume epitomize the Empiricist approach to philosophy that knowledge comes from experience. John Locke (1632-1704) took Descartes even further by suggesting that we have no innate ideas at birth. All knowledge comes to us through perception. Taylor writes, “Rather than following the telos of nature, we become constructors of our own character.”^15(p197) Locke turned nature into an object by completely separating the self from it by making the self an object. Jerrold Siegel suggests that we include those aspects of Locke's tabula rasa or blank slate shaped by body and social/cultural experiences, in addition to his empirical logic.⁴² According to Siegel, Locke's philosophy was embodied, as it included the thinking aspect of the self, the material aspect, and the world that shaped it. Siegel's Locke is much closer to Palmer's worldview than Taylor's interpretation, which emphasizes the ideas only.

Locke gave reason new powers of insight and truth to unleash upon the world through science, democracy, and capitalism. According to Locke, the self has freedom and equality, and the right to life, liberty, and property. Similar ideas, which were a direct extension of Lockean philosophy, can be found in DD Palmer's writings. In his final years, Palmer wrote that, after the displaced vertebra were replaced, the spiritual can be expressed through the physical: “health, happiness, and the fruition of earthly life may be fully enjoyed!”^1(p458) The worldview of Locke and those before him were incorporated into Palmer's worldview. Instead of property, however, Palmer emphasized actualization or fruition. This was an advance on Locke's “possessive individualism”^15(p206) because now the individual's “property” is his or her own personal development. This move of Palmer's can be understood in terms of what Taylor refers to as the post-Romantic “expressivist” legacy.

For Locke, thoughts were material things; and mind was made of matter. George Berkeley (1685-1753) responded to Locke's mechanistic materialism by positing that because God is thinking it, the world exists as an Ideal Subject. The world and matter are only in the mind. For Berkeley, only thoughts were real. The philosophical problems with Berkeley centered on the following paradox: does the world disappear if God stops thinking about it? He does however pose some important dilemmas for future philosophers to tackle. His notion of the ideal subject is taken up in the Romantics and the Idealists worldviews that come even closer to Palmer's. For Palmer, the entire cosmos was an Intelligence evolving. Fuller writes, “Palmer was envisioning an immanent divine force progressively actualizing itself through the evolutionary process.”^39(p72) This essence of Palmer's philosophy was presaged in Berkeley.

David Hume (1711-1776) called causation itself into question. He suggested that we only expect things to happen based on previous experience but there is no guarantee that the same event will occur again. The sun may not rise tomorrow. Habit or belief is the only reason to think it will rise again tomorrow. Until it actually rises, there is no empirical reason to expect it to. For Hume, there is no mind or soul; and all we have are bundles of perceptions. To paraphrase Durant's famous observation: Berkeley destroyed matter; Hume, mind.^43(p335) For Hume, all that was true was experience and mathematics, which was a major blow to science and religion because it called morality and causation into question. Kant was roused to transform philosophy in reaction against Hume's philosophy. There is no direct linkage from Hume to Palmer philosophically. It is important to understand Hume's role in the development of Kant's thinking because it was Kant's reaction to Hume that would set the tone for the integral impulse of the post-Romantic philosophers from Hegel to Schelling to Palmer.

Enlightenments

The Era of Enlightenment, which grew from this new self, is usually defined by the replacement of tyranny, monarchy, and religion with democracy, science, and reason.⁴⁴ Although this was true to some degree, from the very beginning of the Enlightenment, there was dissent, countermovements,^25,45 and covert movements.²⁹ Underneath the cries of Voltaire to end the cruelties and myths, there were materialistic and pantheistic calls to unify matter and mind.^46,47 This was most obvious in the vitalists like Stahl (1660-1734), who believed Matter was animated by the Animus, and Buffon (1707-1788), whose encyclopedia was read well into the 19th century in all Western countries. Buffon viewed life as a property of nature.⁴⁸ There was also a movement to do away with miracles and magic by embracing Mesmeric ether and Swedenborgian altered states,^29,39 2 major influences on Palmer's personal and healing practice before developing chiropractic.^19,27,30,39

Palmer's worldview was influenced by these countercurrents to the Enlightenment. He was well read in 19th century scientific writing especially in physiology, anatomy, and surgery.²⁸ Whether Buffon may have influenced the biological authors Palmer studied would be a fascinating topic to explore. DD Palmer was also well read in Spiritualism and magnetic healing.^19,26,27,39 He wrote, “While Chiropractic is an outgrowth of magnetic healing, it is not magnetic healing advanced, is not the climax of magnetism or any other method.”^1(p214) Mesmer, the founder of magnetic healing, was a contemporary of other Enlightenment authors.⁴⁹ It was probable that the legacy of the modern self, with its individuality, its overreliance on reason, as well as the reactions to these approaches in the form of vitalist, Mesmerist, and Spiritualist approaches, was incorporated into Palmer's worldview.

Self-expression and listening to Innate

The more critical calls to humanize pure reason were embodied in the writings of Rousseau (1712-1778). Taylor refers to this as the “Expressivist Turn,” where “Nature is now within.”^15(p375) This is yet another development of the modern self.¹⁵ Rousseau believed that feeling was higher than reason. The self is now linked to Self-expression. This is rooted in the Reformation idea of “one's calling,” whereby one could now look within, to one's own heart and mind, and determine what life has in store and what purpose you are here for. There is no longer a need to look outside to nature or the cosmos to find one's purpose; the answers are within the “I.” And this self can be found in DD Palmer's understanding of spirit expressing itself through matter^41,50 and BJ Palmer's phenomenological experiments of listening to II as a source of inspiration and intuition.^51,52

Kant and the splitting of modernity

In addition to being awakened from his “dogmatic slumber,”^53(p10) by Hume, Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) was said to have read Rousseau's novel Emile in one sitting under a tree. It is important to understand how Kant's ideas grew from the previous philosophers because Kant's philosophy would set the tone for the future of Western philosophy and, indirectly, DD Palmer's philosophy. Durant wrote that the mission of Kant was “to unite the ideas of Berkeley and Hume with the feelings of Rousseau, to save religion from reason and yet at the same time to save science from skepticism.”^43(p339) Besides the separation of science, art, and morals, which would become the hallmark of modernity, Kant's philosophy influenced the American religious and philosophical movements of the 19th century, from the Transcendentalists such as Emerson, the Pragmatists such as Pierce and James, and also the liberal protestant movement.^27,54-56 Although there is no evidence that Palmer read Kant, the repercussions of Kant's philosophy found its way throughout European philosophy and to the American culture in various forms.

The most probable neo-Kantian influence on Palmer was through the liberal protestant interpretation of Christianity between 1830 and 1890.⁵⁵ McLoughlin writes of the American religious influence after 1830 as “The age of Kant, Coleridge, Wordsworth, and Emerson.”^55(p140) Some progressive American theologians of that period traveled to Germany to study with the neo-Kantians Friedrich Schleiermacher and Albrecth Ritschl. Schleiermacher's interpretation of Christianity was infused with the Romantic philosophers, which led to the late 19th century natural theology of America, which, according to Fuller, “turned away from anthropomorphic conception of God in favor of abstract notions like ‘Cosmic Force’ or ‘Infinite and Eternal Energy.’”^54(p24) Albanese would relate this “Spirit philosophy”^27(p412) directly to chiropractic and to John Fiske, one of the American religious philosophers of the time. Fiske is a good example because he linked theology to evolution in terms very similar to DD Palmer's philosophical writings.⁵⁴ The Kantian link to these approaches centers on the validity of the individual's inner apprehension, apart from Morals or Science, yet linked to objective and empirical truth. Kant would make these distinctions in his 3 critiques.

Science, art, and morals

Modernity arose as a direct result of the development of Reason as it flowered in the Age of Enlightenment in the West. One of the hallmarks of modernity is the instrumental use of reason to split up the world. Gebser referred to this as part of the deficient phase of the Mental-Rational Era, exemplified in the term ratio.^14(p74) This resulted in Descartes' mind/body split and Kant's separation of the spheres of aesthetics, morals, and science. Wilber²¹ and Taylor¹⁵ both seize upon Descartes and Kant as architects of the modern self. And both Taylor and Wilber are interested in this fragmentation of the 3 value spheres as the greatest symptom of modernity's fractured self.

Wilber draws especially from Kant and Habermas¹⁶ to further understand this splitting up of the spheres and how it has impacted society, culture, and the self.⁵⁷ Wilber refers to morals, science, and art as “The Big Three” of philosophy, synonymous with the Good, True, and Beautiful. Any construction of a philosophy of chiropractic must first come to terms with this hallmark of modernity, the post-Kantian approach to knowledge, the splitting up of the big three.^16,57 By understanding Kant's philosophy more precisely, we can see how Palmer's was an attempt at integration in the form of science, art, and philosophy. Ultimately, we may find Wilber's IMP approach more complete than Kant's because it has the advantage of using methodological approaches that were not available during Kant's time, such as developmental structuralism and hermeneutics. And the same limits can be found for Palmer's philosophy and his time.

Kant's critiques

Kant's 3 critiques—Critique of Pure Reason, Critique of Practical Reason, and Critique of Judgment—transformed philosophy. Collingwood explains Kant's 3 critiques as follows,

The first critique (Critique of Pure Reason) where Kant is inquiring into the metaphysical foundations of physical science or knowledge of nature, his doctrine is that we can know only a phenomenal world which we make in the act of knowing it. In the second (Critique of Practical Reason), where he is inquiring into the metaphysical foundations of moral experience, his doctrine is that in moral experience we know our own minds as things in themselves. In the third (Critique of Judgment), his doctrine is that the thing in itself which underlies the phenomena of nature has the character of mind: so that what we know in our practical or moral experience is of the same kind as what we think but cannot know, in our theoretical experience as students of natural science.^58(p118)

According to Kant, the mind has its own organizing powers; it takes the information of the world and shapes it into thought. Thus, the world can never truly be known except through the workings of the mind. Science is the study of exterior things, and Morals or Practical Reason is the study of interior things. Morals could only be known by looking within, which cannot be proved through reason. Kant showed how morality is its own sphere. It is inherent to our humanness, what we might refer to as intersubjective truth. Aesthetics is an interior knowledge with its own domain of subjective truth. Both are to be differentiated from science or the search for objective truth.

Examining the chiropractic ideas of II and UI,without first acknowledging these groundbreaking insights of Kant leaves the examiner on shallow ground. Objective scientific truth is the domain of chiropractic science. This is where things can be studied such as the nervous system and the response of the physiological system to a chiropractic adjustment. The interior domain of aesthetics has its own claim to truth. Interior subjectivity has its own validity claim apart from objective scientific truth. In the domain of chiropractic, this applies to any internal experiences associated with the chiropractic adjustment such as subjective qualitative states of health and well-being but also including heightened forms of awareness and altered states. These types of experiences were associated with chiropractic's philosophy from the start and relate directly to DD Palmer's statements about the validity of personal and experiential knowledge. Palmer writes, “Knowledge is knowing, we know from personal evidence. That which may be evidence to you may not be to me.”^1(p10) Palmer is referring here to internal experience and its validity. The third critique of Kant's relates directly to the moral and religious validity of intersubjective truths, which too cannot be measured objectively, as such truth comes from within. This was also developed within Palmer's philosophy. Palmer writes:

A knowledge of the science, art and philosophy of chiropractic contain a moral and a religious duty; morally, it serves as our basis of humane action according to our reason and judgment concerning our physical welfare; religiously, it governs our motives of divine duty with respect to the advancement of our spiritual existence throughout eternity. Its principles embrace the faith, belief, practice, obligations and conduct of our lives toward God and man.^1(p18)

Palmer is here suggesting a moral and religious reason for chiropractic's advancement and acceptance. This argument of linking Palmer's philosophy to Kantian critiques is not to suggest that Palmer is correct or unassailable in his interior and intersubjective claims to truth. It does however raise the standard of what should be included in any construction of a philosophy of chiropractic. Claims to dismiss the subjective and intersubjective interiors from the philosophy of chiropractic^5,7,59-61 need to address these 2 other domains in some way that satisfies the integration of the 3 value spheres of science, aesthetics, and morals if they are to be relevant to our post-Kantian world.

Differentiation and disassociation

By differentiating these value spheres—Science (True), Aesthetics/Art (Beauty), and Morals (Good)—the modern world was able to achieve incredible advances in the sciences and the arts. Science and art were uncoupled from religion for the first time in history.^16,21 This led to the dissociation of science from morals and the deep need in modern times to “re-enchant” the world by integrating science and spirituality. This is part of what DD Palmer attempted to do in developing chiropractic and its philosophy.

The great advances of the modern era are rooted in this separation of the spheres, which led to a great many things from human rights to sanitation. As noted above, Wilber refers to those types of positive changes from democracy to rights as “the dignity” of modernity. The excesses, from science's dismissal of internal experience to environmental destruction, he refers to as “the disaster” of the modern era.²⁰ Wilber writes:

This differentiation allowed each sphere to make profound discoveries that, if used wisely, could lead to such “good” results as democracy, the end of slavery, the rise of feminism, and rapid advances in medical science; but discoveries that, if used unwisely, could just as easily be perverted into the “downsides” of modernity, such as scientific imperialism, the disenchantment of the world, and totalizing schemes of world domination.^22(p60)

Gebser also believed that each structure of consciousness had an “efficient” and “deficient” form.⁶² Wilber refers to these as health and pathology. Instead of just differentiating these spheres, modernity often disassociated them. For example, science was allowed to pursue its truth unchecked by morals, which has led to everything from gas chambers to nuclear bombs. Wilber writes:

We now arrive at an absolutely crucial turning point, namely, the point where the differentiation of the Big Three (the dignity of modernity) degenerated into the dissociation of the Big Three (the disaster of modernity). This dissociation allowed an explosive empirical science, coupled with rampant modes of industrial production—both of which emphasized solely it-knowledge and it-technology—to dominate and colonialize the other value spheres, effectively destroying them in their own terms.^20(p75)

Before the modern era, these value spheres were undifferentiated. For example, Galileo and Copernicus were restricted in their ability to explore scientific fact; and the greatness of Michelangelo or DaVinci was restricted by patron and pope. The premodern worldview was undifferentiated; the modern was differentiated and then dissociated. According to Wilber, it is the challenge of the postmodern age to integrate these spheres.^{12,17,20,21,63}

Integration of the value spheres

I suggest that chiropractic was an attempt to integrate the value spheres of science, art, and morals. The early rallying cry of chiropractic's distinctness was that it had a unique “philosophy, art, and science.” This rallying cry was the result of several circumstances, most notably, the landmark Morikubo case of 1907,⁶⁴ which used as its defense the first chiropractic textbook, which was written by some of DD Palmer's early students. Ironically, the text itself has only small sections devoted to philosophy; and those are focused on the body's innate reactions to the chiropractic adjustment.⁶⁵ The Morikubo case, however, set legal precedent for chiropractic as a separate and distinct profession, relying on the notion that it had its own philosophy, science, and art. This immediately led to the first explicit publications by DD Palmer and his son BJ Palmer on philosophy.⁶⁶ DD Palmer was now forced to defend and define his new profession as it was quickly being co-opted by his many students, who were not only writing textbooks but also opening chiropractic schools.⁶⁷ Most of Palmer's writings on the subject of philosophy date to after the Morikubo case.

Palmer's writings are distinctive because they capture 5 of the 8 primary methodological approaches to knowledge acquisition: phenomenology (or a first-person account of one's own interiors), autopoietic theory (or the interior perspective of the organism's self-organizing processes), empiricism (objective facts), systems theory (holistic view of the body), and hermeneutics (meaning making within a culture). Palmer did not have access to all of these specific methodological approaches, but he tried to include the dimensions or perspectives they represent: interior apprehension, which is the domain of art and beauty; objective truth, which is the domain of science; intersubjective justness, which is the domain of morals; and systems, which is the objective view of multiple objects interacting such as an entire body. Besides the fact that Palmer did not have access to the other methodological domains, mostly because of the fact that they were not invented yet, his was an attempt to reach beyond the strictly mechanistic rational-mental structure of consciousness.

For various social, cultural, personal, and behavioral reasons, it was impossible for chiropractic to integrate the spheres completely. This left an unbalanced profession, one that did not include all 8 methodological approaches and their perspectives and a fledgling philosophical discipline still seeking academic rigor.¹⁰ However, the rapid growth and overall success of the chiropractic profession and its attendant paradigm, including its postmodern worldview, could be considered windfalls of its robust “multi-dimensional” attempt⁴² to include body, mind, and spirit or Palmer's physical, mental, and spiritual domains.

A more complete way to understand how Palmer's attempt at integration left out various perspectives and their methodological approaches is to view Palmer's philosophy through an integral map. Wilber's integrative map, including 4 quadrants and IMP, can help us understand the genealogical reconstruction of Palmer's self and ideas.

Wilber explicitly uses Kant's differentiation of the value spheres in his creation of the 4 quadrants (Fig 1), an inclusive map of reality designed to allow for first-, second-, and third-person perspectives and premodern, modern, and postmodern worldviews. It is a clear move forward from modernity into postmodernity. Wilber writes:

The Big Three are likewise Kant's 3 critiques: the Critique of Pure Reason (theoretical it-reason), of Practical Reason or intersubjective morality (we), and of personal Aesthetic Judgment (I). Thus, although other items are included as well, these 3 great domains—the Big Three—are especially the domains of empirical science, morality, and art.²¹

Wilber's Integral map is based on his 4 quadrants, which themselves are based on Kant's differentiation of “I,” “We,” and “it.” Wilber then went even further by developing the 8 zones of IMP. By doing so, Wilber uses all of the major areas of knowledge acquisition to create a map of reality.

Neither DD Palmer nor his son BJ, who continued to develop chiropractic and its philosophy for almost 50 years after his father's death in 1913, had access to all known forms of human knowledge or a map with which to explore it. Their efforts were bound to be limited in many ways. The Palmer's philosophical contribution was an intuitive attempt to engage a postmodern identity with the world, with the intent of assisting all beings to evolve.

Overcoming the contradictions of the modern worldview

As a product of the modern worldview, the philosophy of chiropractic was an attempt to further that worldview by overcoming the contradictions inherent to a separation between body and mind, an individual separate from nature and cosmos, and a dissociation between science, art, and morals. To fully appreciate this paradigmatic approach, it is important to understand the philosophy of chiropractic in the personal and interpersonal context from which it emerged in the history of ideas and the nature of the self. DD Palmer was part of the 19th century religious culture but also a self-taught anatomist and physiologist. He was a practicing healer for many years before his development of chiropractic. To more fully understand Palmer's achievement and his visionary approach, it is important to situate his self and his philosophy in the context of genealogy of the self-identity structures and the worldviews and ideas that came before him. A deep study of the ideas of his time and their sources in modern philosophy and the Western Enlightenment is an important way to achieve this.

In his writings, the legacy of Western philosophy, the mental-rational structure of consciousness, and the modern worldview are apparent. With his separation of body, mind, soul, and spirit, we can see roots to Descartes' mind/body dualism. In Palmer's panentheistic embrace of an immanent and transcendent source of intelligence, we can see roots to Spinoza's monism. In the almost holographic approach to the Innate as a parcel of Universal, expressed through matter, we can see roots to Leibniz. And in his characteristic individualism with his emphasis on self-development as a right of individuals, we can see roots to Locke. His empirical approach to the Divine emanating through evolution harkens to Berkeley and the Romantic philosophers that were to come after Kant. The essence of his overall approach can be found throughout the counter-Enlightenment movements displayed through vitalists like Stahl and Buffon, the magnetic ether of Mesmer, the visionary states of Swedenborg, and the expressivist innerness of Rousseau.

Palmer's integrative impulse is most plainly developed in his attempt to include science, art, and philosophy as well as body, mind, soul, and spirit in his definition of chiropractic. This type of inclusion of interior and subjective domains of truth, in the form of objective validity of internal experience, intersubjective domains of truth in the form of a moral and religious vision, as well as his incorporation of science and systems, can be described as neo-Kantian. Palmer's vision and philosophy were an inclusive approach that bridged the many gaps at the heart of modernity, the modern self, and the modern worldview.

Conclusions

By using IMP to construct a philosophy of chiropractic, it is possible to discover whether the 8 methodological approaches and the perspectives they enact have been traditionally missed in the literature on the philosophy of chiropractic. It is also possible to apply the IMP map to discern the methods and perspectives included in the original philosophy of DD Palmer. Thus, we can see how integral the original philosophy was based on how many perspectives it included. Wilber writes, “So the Integral approach involves the cultivation of body, mind, and spirit in self, culture, and nature.”^68(p32) Similarly, the original philosophy of chiropractic can be viewed as surprisingly integral because it involves body, mind, soul, and spirit in art, science, and philosophy.

Applying the IMP map to DD Palmer's philosophy reveals 5 of 8 primordial perspectives disclosed through the methodological approaches of phenomenology, autopoiesis theory, empiricism, hermeneutics, and systems theory, although not all 5 were systematically developed. To more completely understand how those perspectives were enacted in the philosophy of DD Palmer, a genealogical and hermeneutical account of his modern worldview, his self-identity, and his ideas is required. This hermeneutical and cultural approach is essential because it brings a new level of rigor to the discussion around philosophy in chiropractic by showing not only that Palmer and his philosophy were a product of modernity, its individual self, and its mental-rational worldview, but that he was reacting to these in hopes of assisting all humans to evolve in this life and beyond.

DD Palmer's philosophy of II and UI are characteristic of this. Innate Intelligence was defined as a drop in the ocean of UI, the intelligent and All-Wise force informing all matter. The expression of this spiritual essence in matter results in life, or intelligent life, the soul, which combines with the body to produce mind. The ability to coordinate and organize life's functions takes place over the nervous system through vibration, which can be interfered with from nerve impingement and pressure. The chiropractic adjustment was developed to release this pressure, allow for the eternal to express itself through the corporeal as tone, and thus achieve a new level of perfection in this life and beyond. For this reason, chiropractic has a moral and religious reason for being.

Such a deep interpretation of the philosophy of chiropractic is often missed in the literature on chiropractic because much of the literature is written from the mental-rational structure of consciousness, which in many instances is disassociated from art and morals or subjective and intersubjective interiors. Science and objectivity are put on a pedestal at the expense of these deeper aspects of humanness. Rather than forwarding the philosophy of chiropractic, many critiques of the philosophy seek to perpetuate the model of the world developed during the western Enlightenment, where disengaged reason is central to understanding and interpreting reality. By describing Palmer and his philosophy in terms of a reaction to the contradictions of the modern worldview, a postmodern dialogue is opened, which allows for the many important truths of modernity along with the verifiable truths of premodernity to be described and enacted.

Funding sources and potential conflicts of interest

Simon Senzon has received from the Global Gateway Foundation a writing grant to further the objectives of the Foundation. No conflicts of interest were reported for this study.