Placebo from a Biosemiotic Point of View

Abstract: The rise and success of modern science, first in physics, later in medicine, was based on a mechanic linear model of causality. Its only category of explanation of natural processes is the mechanical machine. As human beings using and processing signs we cannot recognize ourselves in this reductionistic model. As all living creatures we perceive, interpret and answer the stimuli of the environment. To explain the behaviour of organisms we need a semioticcircular causality. Semiotics, the study of signs, can be subdivided in semantics, the theory of meaning of signs, in syntax, the theory of the forms and the Arrangement of signs, and in pragmatics, the theory of the contextual rules of communication. Semiotics is not exclusively concerned with language, but helps as so-called biosemiotics also to explain the network of communication of a living organism.The 'Denkstil' of established pharmacology is likewise restricted to mechanistic causality. One of the consequences is the fact that the placebo effect is defined as 'non-specific' or 'non-characteristic'. Such negative definitions exclude concrete questions of investigation. We have to accept a biosemiotic view in pharmacology, to see drugs as signs consisting of a physical vehicle equipped with meaning. The therapy with drugs must be seen in a broader treatment context investigated by pharmacopragmatics. The semiotic expansion of pharmacology does not invalidate the achievements of classic pharmacology, but elucidates in addition a view of the pragmatic components and makes the scientific integration of the placebo phenomenon into drug therapy possible. The placebo effect loses its inconsistency.

Keyword(s): Placebo-Effekt

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