Georges Canguilhem (; ; 4 June 1904 – 11 September 1995) was a French

philosopher A philosopher is a person who practices or investigates philosophy. The term ''philosopher'' comes from the grc, φιλόσοφος, , translit=philosophos, meaning 'lover of wisdom'. The coining of the term has been attributed to the Greek th ...

and

physician A physician (American English), medical practitioner (Commonwealth English), medical doctor, or simply doctor, is a health professional who practices medicine, which is concerned with promoting, maintaining or restoring health through th ...

who specialized in

epistemology Epistemology (; ), or the theory of knowledge, is the branch of philosophy concerned with knowledge. Epistemology is considered a major subfield of philosophy, along with other major subfields such as ethics, logic, and metaphysics. Epi ...

and the

philosophy of science Philosophy of science is a branch of philosophy concerned with the foundations, methods, and implications of science. The central questions of this study concern what qualifies as science, the reliability of scientific theories, and the ultim ...

(in particular,

biology Biology is the scientific study of life. It is a natural science with a broad scope but has several unifying themes that tie it together as a single, coherent field. For instance, all organisms are made up of cells that process hereditary ...

Life and work

Canguilhem entered the

École Normale Supérieure École may refer to: * an elementary school in the French educational stages normally followed by secondary education establishments (collège and lycée) * École (river), a tributary of the Seine flowing in région Île-de-France * École, S ...

in 1924 as part of a class that included

Jean-Paul Sartre Jean-Paul Charles Aymard Sartre (, ; ; 21 June 1905 – 15 April 1980) was one of the key figures in the philosophy of existentialism (and phenomenology), a French playwright, novelist, screenwriter, political activist, biographer, and lite ...

Raymond Aron Raymond Claude Ferdinand Aron (; 14 March 1905 – 17 October 1983) was a French philosopher, sociologist, political scientist, historian and journalist, one of France's most prominent thinkers of the 20th century. Aron is best known for his 19 ...

and

Paul Nizan Paul-Yves Nizan (; 7 February 1905 – 23 May 1940) was a French philosopher and writer. He was born in Tours, Indre-et-Loire and studied in Paris where he befriended fellow student Jean-Paul Sartre at the Lycée Henri IV. He became a member of ...

. He aggregated in 1927 and then taught in

lycée In France, secondary education is in two stages: * ''Collèges'' () cater for the first four years of secondary education from the ages of 11 to 15. * ''Lycées'' () provide a three-year course of further secondary education for children between ...

s throughout France, taking up the study of medicine while teaching in

Toulouse Toulouse ( , ; oc, Tolosa ) is the prefecture of the French department of Haute-Garonne and of the larger region of Occitania. The city is on the banks of the River Garonne, from the Mediterranean Sea, from the Atlantic Ocean and fr ...

He took up a post at the

Clermont-Ferrand Clermont-Ferrand (, ; ; oc, label= Auvergnat, Clarmont-Ferrand or Clharmou ; la, Augustonemetum) is a city and commune of France, in the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region, with a population of 146,734 (2018). Its metropolitan area (''aire d'attrac ...

based

University of Strasbourg The University of Strasbourg (french: Université de Strasbourg, Unistra) is a public research university located in Strasbourg, Alsace, France, with over 52,000 students and 3,300 researchers. The French university traces its history to the ea ...

in 1941, and received his medical doctorate in 1943, in the middle of

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

. Using the pseudonym "Lafont" Canguilhem became active in the

French Resistance The French Resistance (french: La Résistance) was a collection of organisations that fought the German occupation of France during World War II, Nazi occupation of France and the Collaborationism, collaborationist Vichy France, Vichy régim ...

, serving as a doctor in

Auvergne Auvergne (; ; oc, label= Occitan, Auvèrnhe or ) is a former administrative region in central France, comprising the four departments of Allier, Puy-de-Dôme, Cantal and Haute-Loire. Since 1 January 2016, it has been part of the new region Au ...

. By 1948 he was the French equivalent of department chair in philosophy at Strasbourg as well. Seven years later, he was named a professor at the Sorbonne and succeeded Gaston Bachelard as the director of the Institut d'histoire des sciences, a post he occupied until 1971, at which time he undertook an active emeritus career. In 1983 he was awarded the Sarton Medal by the

History of Science Society The History of Science Society (HSS) is the primary professional society for the academic study of the history of science. It was founded in 1924 by George Sarton, David Eugene Smith, and Lawrence Joseph Henderson, primarily to support the publi ...

. In 1987 he received the ''médaille d'or'', awarded by the

Centre national de la recherche scientifique The French National Centre for Scientific Research (french: link=no, Centre national de la recherche scientifique, CNRS) is the French state research organisation and is the largest fundamental science agency in Europe. In 2016, it employed 31,63 ...

(CNRS).

Philosophy of biology

Canguilhem's principal work in philosophy of science is presented in two books, ''Le Normal et le pathologique'', first published in 1943 and then expanded in 1968, and ''La Connaissance de la vie'' (1952). ''Le Normal et le pathologique'' is an extended exploration into the nature and meaning of normality in medicine and biology, the production and institutionalization of medical knowledge. It is still a seminal work in medical anthropology and the history of ideas, and is widely influential in part thanks to Canguilhem's influence on

Michel Foucault Paul-Michel Foucault (, ; ; 15 October 192625 June 1984) was a French philosopher, historian of ideas, writer, political activist, and literary critic. Foucault's theories primarily address the relationship between power and knowledge, and ho ...

. ''La Connaissance de la vie'' is an extended study of the specificity of biology as a science, the historical and conceptual significance of

vitalism Vitalism is a belief that starts from the premise that "living organisms are fundamentally different from non-living entities because they contain some non-physical element or are governed by different principles than are inanimate things." Wher ...

, and the possibility of conceiving organisms not on the basis of mechanical and technical models that would reduce the organism to a machine, but rather on the basis of the organism's relation to the milieu in which it lives, its successful survival in this milieu, and its status as something greater than "the sum of its parts." Canguilhem argued strongly for these positions, criticising 18th and 19th century vitalism (and its politics) but also cautioning against the reduction of biology to a "physical science." He believed such a reduction deprived biology of a proper field of study, ideologically transforming living beings into mechanical structures serving a chemical/physical equilibrium that cannot account for the particularity of organisms or for the complexity of life. He furthered and altered these critiques in a later book, ''Ideology and Rationality in the History of the Life Sciences''. Canguilhem was originally hostile to the ideas of

Henri Bergson Henri-Louis Bergson (; 18 October 1859 – 4 January 1941) was a French philosopherHenri Bergson. 2014. Encyclopædia Britannica Online. Retrieved 13 August 2014, from https://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/61856/Henri-Bergson Le Roy, ...

and vitalism but was later influenced by them and developed his own "idiosyncratic brand of vitalism."Wolfe, Charles; Wong, Andy. (2014)
''The Return of Vitalism: Canguilhem, Bergson and the Project of Biophilosophy''
In Miguel de Beistegui; Giuseppe Bianco; Marjorie Gracieuse. ''The Care of Life: Transdisciplinary Perspectives in Bioethics and Biopolitics''. Rowman & Littlefield International. pp. 63-75. More than just a great theoretician, Canguilhem was one of the few philosophers of the 20th century to develop an approach that was shaped by a medical education. He helped define a method of studying the

history of science The history of science covers the development of science from ancient times to the present. It encompasses all three major branches of science: natural, social, and formal. Science's earliest roots can be traced to Ancient Egypt and Meso ...

which was practical and rigorous. His work focused on the one hand on the concepts of "normal" and "pathological" and, on the other, a critical history of the formation of concepts such as "reflex" in the history of science. Canguilhem was also a mentor to several French scholars, most notably Foucault, for whom he served as a sponsor in the presentation of ''Histoire de la folie à l'âge classique'' (''History of Madness'') for the ''Doctorat d'État'' and whose work he followed throughout the latter's life.

Institutional role

As Inspector General and then President of the Jury d'Agrégation in philosophy, Canguilhem had a tremendous and direct influence over philosophical instruction in France in the latter half of the twentieth century and was known to more than a generation of French academic philosophers as a demanding and exacting evaluator who, as

Louis Althusser Louis Pierre Althusser (, ; ; 16 October 1918 – 22 October 1990) was a French Marxist philosopher. He was born in Algeria and studied at the École normale supérieure in Paris, where he eventually became Professor of Philosophy. Althusser ...

remarked, believed he could correct the philosophical understanding of teachers by bawling them out. This belief did not prevent him from being regarded with considerable affection by the generation of intellectuals that came to the fore in the 1960s, including

Jacques Derrida Jacques Derrida (; ; born Jackie Élie Derrida; See also . 15 July 1930 – 9 October 2004) was an Algerian-born French philosopher. He developed the philosophy of deconstruction, which he utilized in numerous texts, and which was developed th ...

, and

Jacques Lacan Jacques Marie Émile Lacan (, , ; 13 April 1901 – 9 September 1981) was a French psychoanalyst and psychiatrist. Described as "the most controversial psycho-analyst since Freud", Lacan gave yearly seminars in Paris from 1953 to 1981, and ...

. Althusser once wrote to his English translator that "''my debt to Canguilhem is incalculable''" (italics in the original, from ''Economy and Society'' 27, page 171). Likewise, Foucault, in his introduction to Canguilhem's ''The Normal and the Pathological'', wrote:

Take away Canguilhem and you will no longer understand much about Althusser, Althusserism and a whole series of discussions which have taken place among French Marxists; you will no longer grasp what is specific to sociologists such as
Bourdieu Pierre Bourdieu (; 1 August 1930 – 23 January 2002) was a French sociologist and public intellectual. Bourdieu's contributions to the sociology of education, the theory of sociology, and sociology of aesthetics have achieved wide influence i ...
, Castel, Passeron and what marks them so strongly within
sociology Sociology is a social science that focuses on society, human social behavior, patterns of social relationships, social interaction, and aspects of culture associated with everyday life. It uses various methods of empirical investigation an ...
; you will miss an entire aspect of the theoretical work done by psychoanalysts, particularly by the followers of Lacan. Further, in the entire discussion of ideas which preceded or followed the movement of '68, it is easy to find the place of those who, from near or from afar, had been trained by Canguilhem.

Derrida recalled that Canguilhem advised him early in his career that he would have to distinguish himself as a serious scholar before he could exhibit professionally the particular philosophical sense of humour for which he is at turns famous and notorious, advice which Derrida seemed to have taken in earnest. After years of neglect, a great deal of Canguilhem's writings have been translated into English. Among them are his celebrated works ''The Normal and the Pathological'' and ''Knowledge of Life'' as well as two collections of essays, titled ''A Vital Rationalist'' and ''Writings on Medicine.''

Bibliography

* ''Essai sur quelques problèmes concernant le normal et le pathologique'' (1943), re-published with the title ''Le normal et le pathologique, augmenté de Nouvelles réflexions concernant le normal et le pathologique'' (1966). * ''La connaissance de la vie'' (1952). * ''La formation du concept de réflexe aux XVIIe et XVIIIe siècles'' (1955). * ''Du développement à l’évolution au XIXe siècle'' (1962). * ''Etudes d’histoire et de philosophie des sciences'' (1968). * ''Vie'' et ''Régulation'', articles contributed to ''Encyclopaedia Universalis'' (1974). * ''Idéologie et rationalité dans l’histoire des sciences de la vie'' (1977). * ''La santé, concept vulgaire et question philosophique'' (1988). ;Translations into English *''Ideology and Rationality in the History of the Life Sciences'', trans. Arthur Goldhammer (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1988). *''The Normal and the Pathological'', trans. Carolyn R. Fawcett & Robert S. Cohen (New York: Zone Books, 1991). *''Machine and Organism'', trans. Mark Cohen & Randall Cherry, in "Incorporations" Ed. by Jonathan Crary and Sanford Kwinter (New York: Zone Books, 1992). *''A Vital Rationalist: Selected Writings'', trans. Arthur Goldhammer (New York: Zone Books, 1994). *''Knowledge of Life'', trans. Stefanos Geroulanos and Daniela Ginsburg (New York: Fordham UP, 2008). *''Writings on Medicine'', trans. Stefanos Geroulanos and Todd Meyers (New York: Fordham UP, 2012).

Notes

External links