The Tissue Organization Field Theory and the Anti-reductionist Campaign

Abstract

The Tissue Organization Field Theory (TOFT) postulates that neoplasia arises from a problem of three-dimensional organization of a tissue, not from a cell gone awry by mutation or by other mechanisms. The chapter illustrates the theory, the evidence and the experimental approach. It then analyzes the ‘holistic’ version of the theory that is proposed within debates against the Somatic Mutation Theory (SMT), reductionism, atomism and other polemic targets. The chapter then recovers the value of the systemic version of the TOFT, whose epistemological implications deserve a deeper philosophical attention. The TOFT is an adequate definition of the system to be studied, the context providing the permissive conditions in which explanations (sometimes molecular chain, other times tissue-level) may work.