Article ID: CBB001510274

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

unapi

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.

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Authors & Contributors
Rheinberger, Hans-Jörg
Méthot, Pierre-Olivier
Loison, Laurent
Erdur, Onur
Isabel Gabel
Basso Lorini, Elisabetta
Concepts
Historiography
Philosophy of science
Epistemology
Historians of science, modern
Biology
Philosophy of biology
Time Periods
20th century
20th century, late
21st century
20th century, early
19th century
Places
France
Germany
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