A Vital Ratio nalist Selected Writings from Georges Canguilhem Edited by Francois Delaporte Translated by Arthur Goldhammer with an introducti.on by Paul Rabinow and a critical bibliography by Camille Limoges ZONE BOOKS • NEW YORK 2000 111m[m�11�11i�illlli�111 � 39001105503513 � © 1994 Urzone, Inc. Q ZONE BOOKS \15 611 Broadway, Suite 608 �c?.> New York, NY 10011 4 2000 All rights reserved. First Paperback Ed�tion No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including electronic, mechanical, photocopy­ ing, microfilming, recording or otherwise (except for that copying permitted by Sections 107 and 108 of the U.S. Copyright Law and except by reviewers for the public press) without written permission from the Publisher. Sources for the excerpts are listed on pp. 480-81 Printed in the United States of America Distributed by The MIT Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, and London, England Library of Congre�s Cataloging-in-Publication Data Canguilhem, Georges, 1904-1995 A vital rationalist : selected writings from Georges Canguilhem / edited by Frans:ois Delaporte; translated by Arthur Goldhammer with an introduction by Paul Rabinow and a critical bibliography by Camille Limoges. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references. ISBN 0-942299-73-6 i. Science-History. 2. Science-Philosophy. 1. Delaporte, Frans:ois, 1941- • 11. Title. Ql25 .q4 1993 500-dc20 93-8613 CIP ,••'......... -0. ··<'-le1sltesi� ,.11'll•H., �>· (/J' .....• '•, ./ .� ........ .. .., ...."·.I\,/? '"";., \. ..... ::· �'···· l � ,{.......... .... .......... .. .... :·, � "\ \ :0 12 -10- 2009 �; J ,, • � ..................... 1,., ..... ..... �: o/ · .. , .. ···· . \. � -... l ,....····��r .. .. "' ,.� .. ,.. -:..··.. ;,,...:�-''/ •-., ...... .. .. �'\ ..• .. on s .. tent . :_...� ••• rfJ/SJef\\U�'· ��, r�.,.•.t �r'' • •• t t'" :' ,, ,.:t• ,,..,•" Editor's Note by Fran�ois Delaporte 9 Introduction: A Vital Rationalist by Pa ul Rabi now 11 PART ONE METHODOLOGY The History of Science 25 II The Various Models 41 III The History of the History ofScience 49 PART Two EPISTEMOLOGY IV Epistemology of Biology 67 V Epistemology of Physiology ·A Baroque Physiology 91 An Experimental Science 103 The Major Problems of Nineteenth-Century Physiology . 115 VI Epistemology of Medicine TheLimits of Healing 129 The NewSituat ion of Medicine 133 . A Medical Revolution 145 PART THREE HISTORY VII Cell Theory 161 VIII The Concept of Reflex 179 IX Biological Objects 203 PART FOUR INTERPRETATIONS x Rene Descartes 219 XI Auguste Comte 237 XII Claude Bernard 261 PART FIVE PROBLEMS XIII Knowledge and the Living Science and Life 287 The Concept of Life 303 XIV The Normal and the Pathological 321 Introduction tothe Problem 321 Th e Identity of th e Two States 327 Implications and Counterpositions 337 xv �formalityand Normativity 351 Critical Bibliography by Camille Limo9es 385 Notes 455 Tr anslator's Note The texts collected here are translated from the French forthe firsttime, but fortwo exceptions: I have included passages from my translation of Georges Canguilhem's Ideolo9y and Rationality (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1988) and from Carolyn Fawcett's translation of The Normal and the Pa tholo9ical (N�w Yo rk: Zone Books, 1.989). 7 Edi tor's Note Fran<;ois Delaporte The texts collected in this volume introduce English-language readers to an especially difficultand complex dimension of George Canguilhem's work, namely his philosophy of biology and medi­ cine. Its primary purpose, then, is to chart the main themes of Canguilhem's thought, which is distinguished by minute atten­ tion to developments in biology and medicine over the past fifty years. To achieve this end, importance was given to questions of methodology in the history of science. This in itself was neces­ sary because the object of historical discourse is not scientificdis­ course as such but the historicity of scientific discourse insofar as it represents the implementation of an epistemological proj­ ect (projet de savoir). If the history of science is the history of a discourse subject to the norm of critical rectification, then it is clearly a branch of epistemology.· Canguilhem recognizes that the disciplines whose history he writes give the appearance of a gen­ esis, that is, a process opposed to the diversity of the various forms of pseudo-science. This, in fact, is the source of his interest in epistemological breaks. Studying the history of an activity itself definedby its reference to truth as an epistemological value forces one to focus attention ·on both the failures and successes of that activity. Taking a macroscopic view of the history of science, 9 A VITAL RATIONALIST Canguilhem undertook to study the emergence of three disci­ plines: biology, physiology and medicine. Depending on the sub­ ject of study, Canguilhem will sometimes provide a history of theory, sometimes a history of concepts and sometimes a history of biological objects. But the objective is always the same: to describe how ideology and science are at once intertwined and separate. Further, his studies of Rene Descartes, Auguste Comte and Claude Bernard clearly reveal why, as Louis Althusser once put it, Canguilhem is considered one of the best "teachers of how to read works of philosophy and science." The reader, we assume, will not be surprised that the present work ends with a series of general questions concerning the relation of knowledge to life and of the normal to the pathological. Canguilhem began with error and on that basis posed the philosophical problem of truth and life.For Michel Foucault, this approach constituted "one of the crucial events in the history of modernphilosop hy." 10 Introduction: A Vi tal Rationa list Paul Rabinow Georges Canguilhem was born in Castelnaudary in southwest­ ern France on June 4, 1904. Although his father was a tailor, Canguilhem likes to refer to himself, not without a certain twinkle in his eye, as being of peasant stock, rooted in the har­ monious, cyclical life of the soil and the seasons, his sensibilities formedby the yearly round of the fruittrees. The story of his sen­ timental education is a classic one. High marks on national exam- . inations sent him on a journey to Paris to study; once there, he was a great success. After completing his studies at the prestigious Lycee Henri IV, he entered the most elite educational institution in France, the Ecole Nonnale Superieure, in 1924. Among his promotion, his cohort, were Jean-Paul Sartre, Raymond Aron and Paul Nizan; Maurice Merleau-Ponty entered the Ecole a year later. Already at this time, Canguilhem was interested in themes that he would return to and develop throughout his intellectual life: in particular, a paper on Auguste Comte's theory of order and progress, which Canguilhem submitted fora diploma� displays the beginnings of this persistent interest in the relation of rea­ son and society - an interest he shared with his other distin­ guished classmates but which Canguilhem developed in a highly original manner. The philosopher Alain's judgment of Canguilhem II A VITAL RATIONALIST in 1924 as "lively, resolute and content" still captures the man's spirit almost three-quarters of a century later.1 Once he became a9re9e in philosophy in 1927, the young Canguilhem began his teaching tour of provincial lycees, as was required of all Ecole Normale graduates in repayment to the state for their education. His initial peregrinations ended in 1936 in Toulouse, where he taught at!rthe lycee, while beginning his medical training. In 1940, he resigned from his teaching post, because, as he wrote the Rector of the Academie de Toulouse, he hadn't become an agrege in philosophy in order to preach the doctrine of the Vichy regime.2 He took advantage of his newly found free time to complete his medical studies. Prophetically, in both a philosophic and political .s.ense, Canguilhem replaced Jean Cavailles, the philosopher of mathematics - he had been called to the Sorbonne - at the University of Strasbourg, which relocated to Clermont-Ferrand in 1941, when Strasbourg was annexed by the Reich. He participated in the formation of an important resistance group to which he made available his skills. All in all, a life in the century, as the French say: like so many of his compatriots, Canguilhem's lifewas shaped by the conjunc­ ture of France's enduring institutions and the contingent events of his time. In 1943, Canguilhem defended his medical thesis, "Essais sur qtielques problemes concemant le normal et le pathologique." The continued timeliness and exceptional durability of this work is attested to by the fact that he updated it twenty years later with significantnew reflections, andthat it was translated into English decades late'r as The Normal and th e Pa th olo9icaJ.3 After the war, he resumed his post at the University of Strasbourg (in Strasbourg), where he remained until 1948. After firstrefusing the important administrative post of inspecteur general de phi­ losophie at the Liberation, he finally accepted it in 1948, and 12 INTRODUCTION served until 1955, when he accepted the Chair of History and Philosophy of Sciences at the Sorbonne and succeeded Gaston Bachelard as director of the lnstitut d'histoire des sciences et des techniques. His reputation as a ferocious examiner lives on in Paris today, as does � deep well of affection forthe intellectual and institutional support he provided over the decades.4 History and Philosophy of Science Louis Althusser paid Canguilhem a compliment when he com­ pared him (as well as Cavailles, Bachelard, Jules Vuillemin and Michel Foucault) to an anthropologist who goes into the field armed with "a scrupulous respect forthe reality of real science."5 The comparison is revealing if not quite an accurate description of Canguilhem's method. More strictly ethnographic studies of laboratory life, like those of Bruno Latour, would come later and would aim not merely at correcting a positivist and idealist understanding of science as a single unified activity achieving a cumulative understanding of nature, but also at dismantling the very idea of science - a position as farfrom Canguilhem's as one could imagine.