IsisCB Explore

Article ID: CBB001510274

The Life of Concepts: Georges Canguilhem and the History of Science (2014)

Schmidgen, Henning (Author)

History and Philosophy of the Life Sciences
Volume: 36, no. 2
Issue: 2
Pages: 232-253

DOI: 10.1007/s40656-014-0030-1

Outside Links

WorldCat

Google Scholar

JSTOR

Academia.edu

Twelve years after his famous Essay on Some Problems Concerning the Normal and the Pathological (1943), the philosopher Georges Canguilhem (1904--1995) published a book-length study on the history of a single biological concept. Within France, his Formation of the Reflex Concept in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries (1955) contributed significantly to defining the “French style” of writing on the history of science. Outside of France, the book passed largely unnoticed. This paper re-reads Canguilhem's study of the reflex concept with respect to its historiographical and epistemological implications. Canguilhem defines concepts as complex and dynamic entities combining terms, definitions, and phenomena. As a consequence, the historiography of science becomes a rather complex task. It has to take into account textual and contextual aspects that develop independently of individual authors. In addition, Canguilhem stresses the connection between conceptual activities and other functions of organic individuals in their respective environments. As a result, biological concepts become tied to a biology of conceptual thinking, analogical reasoning, and technological practice. The paper argues that this seemingly circular structure is a major feature in Canguilhem's philosophical approach to the history of the biological sciences.

...More

Citation URI

https://data.isiscb.org/isis/citation/CBB001510274/

Citations Indexes

Similar Citations

Article (2000)
Georges Canguilhem en son temps: études et témoignages. Georges Canguilhem in his time. (/isis/citation/CBB000110059/)

Article Debru, Claude; (2010)
Über Georges Canguilhems Was heißt eine wissenschaftliche Ideologie? und über deutsch-französische Beiträge zum Thema Wissenschaft und Ideologie aus den letzten vierzig Jahren (/isis/citation/CBB001021198/)

Book Mirko Grmek; Hans-Jörg Rheinberger; (2018)
Pathological Realities: Essays on Disease, Experiments, and History (/isis/citation/CBB288323740/)

Article Elisabetta Basso Lorini; (2017)
The erudite humility of the historian: the ‘critical epistemology’ of Georges Lantéri-Laura (/isis/citation/CBB521505204/)

Book Onur Erdur; (2018)
Die epistemologischen Jahre: Philosophie und Biologie in Frankreich, 1960-1980 (/isis/citation/CBB577433788/)

Book Braunstein, Jean-François; (2007)
Canguilhem: Histoire des sciences et politique du vivant (/isis/citation/CBB000954566/)

Article François Delaporte; (2018)
The Birth of the Clinic and the Sources of Archaeological History (/isis/citation/CBB852374486/)

Article Chimisso, Cristina; (2003)
The Tribunal of Philosophy and Its Norms: History and Philosophy in Georges Canguilhem's Historical Epistemology (/isis/citation/CBB000340812/)

Article Carlos Estellita-Lins; Flavio Coelho Edler; (2018)
Charting Links between Life, Science, and Technique: Georges Canguilhem and Lucien Febvre (/isis/citation/CBB619848233/)

Article Laurent Loison; (2018)
Introduction: Biologie, philosophie de la biologie et histoire de la biologie chez Georges Canguilhem (1904-1995) (/isis/citation/CBB248480451/)

Article Emmanuel Delille; (2017)
Usages et mésusages de la notion de précurseur en histoire des sciences et des techniques, en particulier en histoire de la psychiatrie: À propos d’un échange épistolaire entre Henri Ellenberger et Georges Canguilhem (1967) (/isis/citation/CBB252988021/)

Article Laurent Loison; (2019)
Les Œuvres complètes de Georges Canguilhem (/isis/citation/CBB668229061/)

Article Isabel Gabel; (2018)
La biologie, la réflexivité et l’histoire: Réinscrire Canguilhem dans son milieu (/isis/citation/CBB085805175/)

Book Rheinberger, Hans-Jörg; (2010)
An Epistemology of the Concrete (/isis/citation/CBB001023158/)

Thesis Cauvin, Jean-Paul; (2014)
A New Machine For Thinking: Historical Epistemology in Twentieth Century France (/isis/citation/CBB001567586/)

Article Méthot, Pierre-Olivier; (2013)
On the Genealogy of Concepts and Experimental Practices: Rethinking Georges Canguilhem's Historical Epistemology (/isis/citation/CBB001211304/)

Article Levine, George; (2009)
Reflections on Darwin and Darwinizing (/isis/citation/CBB001030092/)

Article Secord, Jim; Yang, Haiyan; (2009)
A Non-Darwinian in the Darwin Year (/isis/citation/CBB001024105/)

Book Buchanan, Ian; (2000)
Michel de Certeau: Cultural Theorist (/isis/citation/CBB000102150/)

Book Gillispie, Charles Coulston; (2007)
Essays and Reviews in History and History of Science (/isis/citation/CBB000950441/)

Comments

{{ comment.created_by.username }} on {{ comment.created_on | date:'medium' }}