The tribunal of philosophy and its norms: History and philosophy in Georges Canguilhem's historical epistemology

Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part C: Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences 34 (2):297-327 (2003)
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Abstract

In this article I assess Georges Canguilhem's historical epistemology with both theoretical and historical questions in mind. From a theoretical point of view, I am concerned with the relation between history and philosophy, and in particular with the philosophical assumptions and external norms that are involved in history writing. Moreover, I am concerned with the role that history can play in the understanding and evaluation of philosophical concepts. From a historical point of view, I regard historical epistemology, as developed by Gaston Bachelard and Georges Canguilhem, as a conception and practice which came out of the project, elaborated in France from the 1920s to the 1940s, of combining history of science and philosophy. I analyse in particular Canguilhem's epistemology in his theory and practice of history of science. What he called 'normative history' is the focus of my analysis. I evaluate the question of the nature and provenience of the norm employed in normative history, and I compare it with the norm as discussed by Canguilhem in Le normal et le pathologique. While I am critical of Canguilhem's treatment of history, I conclude that his philosophical suggestion to analyse the formation of scientific concepts 'from below' represents a useful model for history and philosophy of science, and that it can be very profitably extended to philosophical concepts.

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Cristina Chimisso
Open University (UK)

References found in this work

Archaeology of knowledge.Michel Foucault - 1972 - New York: Routledge.
The sociology of philosophies: a global theory of intellectual change.Randall Collins - 1998 - Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.
From the closed world to the infinite universe.A. Koyré - 1957 - Revue Philosophique de la France Et de l'Etranger 148:101-102.

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