Philosophy is a system of thought resulting from the search of knowledge. It believes in a calm acceptance of events and self control in the face of suffering or danger.

Science is a systematised knowledge is an attempt to understand nature . it does not believe in acceptance of events. It is a struggle. During the evolution of human thought science got separated from philosophy. (science- 1.- a collection of exactly observed facts, correlation or generalisation of these facts , formulation of these generalisations as laws, it proceeds to some principles or force accounting for these laws 2.- a mental attitude of intellectual morality, characterized by open-mindedness freedom from prejudice and fairness.

The schools of philosophy, during the periods of Hahnemann can be broadly grouped into three — the idealistic school, the materialistic school and the substantialistic school.

1. Idealism - it is a method of reflective thinking which would interpret and explain the whole universe, things, mind, and their relations as the realisations of a system of ideas.
2. Materialism — they believe that factors are to be explained in accordance with the reality, activity and the laws of physical science.
3. Substantialism — they believe that the substantial existence or real beings are the sources of all phenomena mental and physical. In their opinion sound, gravity, magnetism, light , heat etc. all are substantial.

New inventions and advances in physical science modified and strengthened the materialistic school but their complete failure to explain natural phenomena including life and mind highlighted the significance of the idealistic school.

There was a constant conflict between the two schools, but Hahnemann being a realist and a keen observer of both these schools was never obsessed with any of the one-sided theories and vague concepts of these schools . He was never a blind follower of of either the idealistic school or the materialistic school. He was a philosopher who believed in thorough knowledge. he believed in the reality of mind, life and matter.

The philosophical schools of his time was over-generalizing the facts, creating vague concepts and they committed that philosophical crime of confusion of categories.

The materisalists were after specialisations and these specialists lead a cocoon-like existence without much interaction with other field of human knowledge and as a result they also developed many imperfect concept. . -

Hahnemann was not prepared to accept anything justifiable by sense experience — he believed in matter because he was able to perceive matter. He believed in qualities like life and mind because he was able to perceive their working phenomena. He was not much bothered with the regional analysis and interpretation of the qualities but since he could sense experience them he believed in them. Similarly he wanted to understand the curative properties of medicinal substances by testing them on healthy human beings and observing the manifestations.

The greatest contribution of Hahnemann to the medical philosophy in his concept of medicine as a branch of biology. He was made his philosophic stand point clear in an essay” Spirit of Homeopathic medical doctrine” published in the year 1813. In this article he states that the essential nature of life cannot be perceived as life’s quality . life is not regulated purely by the physical laws. The human systems regulated by the laws peculiar to the vitality alone and all recent advances in the physiology are nothing but advances in the chemico-physical processes underlying the life phenomenon. Here he is leaning more towards the vtalistic school of thought — a comparative study of the successive editions of Organon will show this approach more clearly. He is using the term ‘vital force’ in its full meaning for the first time in the 5 edition of the Organon. In the previous editions he had used the terms ‘organisms, body and the state of health’. In the 5 edition from the 9 aphorism onwards upto the 18 one he gives us a good narration of the concept of vital force. In the 6 edition he replaced the word force by the word principle. This also signifies his inclination towards the qualitative aspects.

He believed that a holistic concept is necessary to understand the living phenomena of any being.

A whole is to be differentiated from an aggregate. A whole is something more than the sum of its parts. The whole is something over and above its parts brought into being by their coming together but not therefore to be resolved into them. The human being has a personality of his own which is more than the arithmetic sum of the constituents of the body. He insisted on the study of the man in a holistic organismal point of view. Unlike a mechanism, the human system has a central original unifying and self regulating principle. An organism is not artistically made, it is not put together by the forces acting from outside not evolved by the single power working from within — a self evolving, self sustaining unity. Life is the beginning and the resultant of the organism and he believed in an interconnected existence of matter, life and mind as a unity.

 To him the organism was the fact and all the necessary was the correct observation of all the phenomena manifested through the organism, which were nothing but the reflections of the internal sphere He was in support of the theory that the mental whole and the vital whole are logically prior to the parts. This wholistic approach will help on combine benicificial effect of the materialistic and vitalistic approach in his studies.

This point out individuality of the person, the disease and the drug respectively. Hahnemann argued that a drug does not produce mere symptoms, but produce disease just as a whole by a drug, as by a natural disease cause. Hahnemann was against the coldly scientific approach of specialization and he preferred a holistic, integrated approach.

Another important aspect of his philosophy was his phenomenological approach. He believed that health is a phenomenon, disease is another phenomenon. All physiological and pathological mechanisms are secondary effects of these phenomena. In short he had given more importance to the more original, qualitative aspects of health as well as disease.
Perhaps he is the first man to introduce inductive logic to the field of medicine.

The different steps in the inductive methods include
1. Observation and analysis of facts
2. Formation of hypothesis
3. Deduction of consequences
4. Proof

Hanhnemann adopted his scientific method of inquiry to formulate the new method of treatment. He believed that health and diseases are states and conditions related to a living organism. The totality of sensations and functions of these states the subject matter for study in medicine. So the first duty of the physician is to observe the alterations in sensations and fiinction as precisely, comprehensively and perfectly as possible.

He can be included in the vitalistic school of philosophy. Vitalism is the doctrine that life is the basic reality of which everything else is a form or manifestation. He is expressing his vitalistic concepts more clearly in he 5 edition of his organon from the 9 aphorism onwards up to the 18 aphorism.
He was against the nosology or nominal classification of diseases. He argued that health as well as disease are some unique phenomena and as each and every individual got some peculiar character differentiating one from the other — that uniqueness will persist in the disease as well. And he does not believe in such rigid nominal classifications.

Different organs of the body has got different functions to do. Hahnemann insisted on the existence of central unifying quality, controlling regulating and preserving these diverse functions thus helping the organism to exist as unity.

When we carefully examine the philosophy of the Hahnemann we could clearly perceive the influence of great philosophers like Hegel, Descartes, Francis Bacon, J.S.Mi1, John Locke, Spinoza, Leibnitz and Fredreich Hegel in his writings. The philosophy of Hahnemann is based upon and includes not only the physiological and pathological actions and reactions of man as a physical organism bit of man as a spiritual and psychical being for it utilizes the mental, subjective and functional phenomena.