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Normal and Pathological Humanity Michael Hagner on Canguilhem NORMAL AND PATHOLOGICAL HUMANITY norms according to the principle of he pushed back his epistemology and MICHAEL HAGNER ON CANGUILHEM, auto-correction, in his late essays he is explored how the organism can be seen INTERVIEWED BY CAROLINE A. JONES reflecting about the human subject that to cope with its own imperfections. It experiences its own precarious status in seems to me that this turn leads to a contemplation of death. paradox. On the one hand, Canguilhem shrinks back from the idea of an excep- Caroline A. Jones: Georges Canguilhem is known to most CAJ: You comment that Canguilhem’s tional position for homo sapiens; on the English-speakers today through the 1991 Zone translation of work can be seen, on the one hand, as a other hand, he claims that humans are The Normal and the Pathological, which was published with simple history of medicine; yet you also arguably the only species that observes an important introduction by Michel Foucault that secured its point out his broader concern with the and comments on its own physical rapid uptake here. Can you speak broadly to the importance foundations of all organic life. Would decline. you ascribe to the later work of Canguilhem, which is not as Foucault have too narrow a view of well known? Canguilhem as uniquely concerned with CAJ: Can you speak to the significance the human? With understanding how of Canguilhem’s completing his doctor- Michael Hagner: The Zone edition made Canguilhem’s book the normativity of “health” is regulated ate with The Normal and the Pathologi- famous, but the English translation of The Normal and the in the human? Or, as you explore in your cal during World War 2 (it’s published in Pathological was in fact first published in 1978, already with introduction to the German publica- 1943)? You discuss his politics as partly a Foucault’s introduction. In that very influential text, Foucault tion of these texts, is Canguilhem more function of disillusionment with the inef- argued that Canguilhem developed a philosophy of error, of engaged with organisms or beings more fectuality of the Resistance under Vichy. concept, and of life against a philosophy of sense, of subjects, generally? What about the corruption of medicine and of experience. The latter one was represented by phe- as a Hippocratic practice during the nomenology and existentialism, mainly through Sartre and MH: In his introduction, Foucault is Reich, would this have been something Merleau-Ponty; the former one was the rationalistic tradition primarily concerned with Canguilhem’s he was aware of? of Bachelard and Canguilhem, into which Foucault integrated historical epistemology. He emphasizes himself. What I find striking – and what motivated me to write Canguilhem’s insight that it would have MH: I do not know under which condi- an afterword to his later essays1 – is that Canguilhem pub- been impossible to constitute the sci- tions Canguilhem defended his medical lished most of these essays on medicine after 1978, after Fou- ences de la vie by the end of the 18th thesis in 1943, but the question, which cault’s introduction. In these texts Canguilhem did not quite century without taking into consider- traces were left in his writings by the turn into an existentialist, but – perhaps feeling plagued by ation disease, monstrosity, anomaly, occupation of France through Nazi his own age, (he was born in 1904) – he reflected about basic or death. Therefore, medicine is a most Germany and the Vichy Regime, and questions of medicine, such as health, cure, the concept of important field for the epistemology of by his engagement in the Résistance nature in medical theory and practice, the power and the limi- the life sciences, yet Foucault would not and the assassination of his friend Jean tations of rationality in medicine – and, of course, the human. argue that Canguilhem is mainly con- Cavaillés through the Nazis, is a mat- These essays use examples from history, but in these texts cerned with the human. Canguilhem is ter of particular interest for me. This is Canguilhem’s perspective is that of a philosopher of medicine. neither a phenomenologist nor does he because, in very general terms, I would This is a dimension in his œuvre leading beyond his episte- develop an anthropocentric philosophy. say that the history of 20th century mological and his historical interests. Whereas in The Normal For him, any human activity, be it sane epistemology and Science Studies can and the Pathological Canguilhem argued that organisms, in or insane, is ultimately an expression only be understood as a product of its the status of health as well as in that of disease, set their own of the specificity of the organism. In his face-to-face confrontation with politi- epistemological writings, Canguilhem cal totalitarianisms in those days. As far 1 See Michael Hagner, Georges Canguilhem und das Problem der Medizin, wanted to understand the ways in which as I know, Canguilhem did not directly in: Georges Canguilhem, Schriften zur Medizin, tr. by Th. Laugstien. Zürich/ this organismic specificity is conceived thematize the unique barbarism of medi- Berlin: diaphanes 2013, pp. 115-143. Canguilhem’s essays have also recently in the historical development of sci- cine and biopolitics in Germany, but his been translated into English: Georges Canguilhem, Writings on medicine, tr. and with an introduction by Stefanos Geroulanos and Todd Meyers. Ford- ence and medicine. In his late writings, experience under Vichy and the Nazi ham University Press 2012. 100 Caroline A. Jones 101 Normal and Pathological Humanity, Michael Hagner on Canguilhem bernetic paradigm after 1945 was that MH: True, for Canguilhem, the concepts its machine-centered universalism was of auto-correction and self-regulation seen as a welcome remedy against the are the most important mechanisms for organism-centered stigmatizing typol- the living being. He took these con- ogy of eugenics.2 Hence, I was quite cepts from the German neurologist Kurt relieved, when I learned that Canguil- Goldstein, who characterized health and hem rejected any analogy between the disease as two modes of relationship organism and society. In his speech to between an organism and its environ- the French organization of the Alliance ment. He also adopted Walter Cannon’s israélite universelle, in 1955, Canguilhem theory of homeostasis. Despite all their was fully aware of the political back- differences, these two theories (of auto- ground that would be supplied for any correction and homeostasis) can be seen discussion of “the issue of regulation in as versions of systems theory, which the organism and society,” yet he did not have some striking similarities with mention eugenics explicitly. This silence cybernetics – though the latter has its may come as a surprise, but I would ar- reference point in self-regulating ma- gue that it is merely the discretion of the chines and computing devices, whereas epistemologist, who works with concep- the former has its reference point in the tual clarification rather than with particu- biological organism. Canguilhem was lar reference to historical acts of terror- certainly interested in cybernetics, yet in ism and barbarism in order to reject that his seminal 1947 lecture and paper on equation of organism and society. In “Machine and organism” he argued that the organism all elements exist for the organisms should serve as models for good of the whole, but there’s nothing building machines, and not vice versa.3 like this self-regulating system in society. This was against the mainstream at the The living individual is characterized by time, and I am quite sympathetic with self-regulation and homeostasis, society this view, because it prevents us from is not. Society, invented as a tool for the technological determinism and the odd Copyright the Club Philo du Lycée de Sèvres : welfare of human beings, is in a notori- idea of conceiving society as a cyber- http://www.coin-philo.net/p_canguilhem.php ously endangered state, the organism is netic feedback mechanism. not, unless it is afflicted by sickness. occupation certainly had consequences CAJ: In your text accompanying the CAJ: What happens, when sickness for his thinking. We can clearly see it, for German translation of these writings, CAJ: You identify the relationship be- comes into play? example in his haunting warning against you comment specifically on the devel- tween “Self-regulation” and “precarity” equating society and organism. He opments of eugenics and cybernetics in in the later Canguilhem. You often use MH: Sickness disturbs the functional agreed with US physiologist Walter Can- confrontation with what it means to be the phrase “Auto-correct”… you must be equilibrium between the organism and non that there is a wisdom of the body, human in the 20th century – this is how conscious of its computerized analogy? its respective environment. The organ- but he rejected the idea that there is that warning against an “organismic What is the role of mechanism in Can- ism is pushed to reset itself on a reduced something like a wisdom of society. This society” takes shape, yes? guilhem’s theory (and your own)? functional level. Instead of abundant position was certainly a consequence of self-realization simple existence be- his experiences in the age of extremes MH: In my own work on the history and, as I should like to add, contrasts of twentieth century brain research I 2 See Michael Hagner, “Bilder der Kybernetik: 3 Georges Canguilhem, “Machine and Organism” with current flirtations with the “wisdom argued a couple of years ago that one Diagramm und Anthropologie, Schaltung und (1947), translated from the French by Mark Nervensystem”, in: idem, Der Geist bei der Ar- Cohen and Randall Cherry in Jonathan Crary of the crowd,” for example.
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