Synopses & Reviews
Georges Canguilhem is one of France's foremost historians of science. Trained as a medical doctor as well as a philosopher, he combined these practices to demonstrate to philosophers that there could be no epistemology without concrete study of the actual development of the sciences and to historians that there could be no worthwhile history of science without a philosophical understanding of the conceptual basis of all knowledge. A Vital Rationalist brings together for the first time a selection of Canguilhem's most important writings, including excerpts from previously unpublished manuscripts and a critical bibliography by Camille Limoges.Organized around the major themes and problems that have preoccupied Canguilhem throughout his intellectual career, the collection allows readers, whether familiar or unfamiliar with Canguilhem's work, access to a vast array of conceptual and concrete meditations on epistemology, methodology, science, and history. Canguilhem is a demanding writer, but Delaporte succeeds in marking out the main lines of his thought with unrivaled clarity; readers will come away with a heightened understanding of the complex and crucial place he holds in French intellectual history.Georges Canguilhem is Professor Emeritus at the Sorbonne and former director of the Institut d'Histoire des Sciences et des Techniques de l'Université de Paris. His works include La Connaissance de la Vie, Ideology and Rationality in the History of the Life Sciences, and The Normal and the Pathological. François Delaporte is a Research Associate at the Institut National de la Santé et de la Recherche Medicale in Paris. He is the author of Disease and Civilization and The History of Yellow Fever.
Synopsis
Georges Canguilhem (1904-1995) was one of France's foremost historians of science. Trained as a medical doctor as well as a philosopher, he combined these practices to demonstrate to philosophers that there could be no epistemology without concrete study of the actual development of the sciences and to historians that there could be no worthwhile history of science without a philosophical understanding of the conceptual basis of all knowledge. A Vital Rationalist brings together for the first time a selection of Canguilhem's most important writings, including excerpts from previously unpublished manuscripts and a critical biography by Camille Limoges.
Synopsis
i>A Vital Rationalist brings together for the first time a selection of Canguilhem's most important writings, including excerpts from previously unpublished manuscripts and a critical biography by Camille Limoges.
Description
Includes bibliographical references (p. 455-481) and index.
About the Author
Georges Canguilhem is Professor Emeritus at the Sorbonne and former director of the Institut d'Histoire des Sciences et des Techniques de l'Université de Paris. His works include La Connaissance de la Vie, Ideology and Rationality in the History of the Life Sciences, and The Normal and the Pathological.François Delaporte is a Research Associate at the Institut National de la Santé et de la Recherche Medicale in Paris. He is the author of Disease and Civilization and The History of Yellow Fever.
Table of Contents
The history of science -- The various models -- The history of science -- Epistemology of biology -- Epistemology of physiology : A baroque physiology ; An experimental science ; The major problems of nineteenth-century physiology -- Epistemology of medicine : The limits of healing ; The new situation of medicine ; A medical revolution -- Cell theory -- The concept of reflex -- Biological objects -- Renâe Descartes -- Auguste Comte -- Claude Bernard -- Knowledge and the living : Science and life ; The concept of life -- The normal and the pathological : Introduction to the problem ; The identity of the two states ; Implications and counterpositions -- Normality and normativity.