RESUMEN Se indaga el problema de la explotación técnica del mundo a partir de los pensamientos de Xavier Zubiri y Georges Canguilhem. Se examina el análisis zubiriano de la inteligencia humana y la tesis de Canguilhem sobre la originalidad de la actividad técnica, su relación con la ciencia y su papel en la normatividad del organismo. En ambos autores, el término Umwelt, traducido como "circun-mundo" o medio de comportamiento propio, sirve como base para establecer las posibilidades que tiene la técnica (...) en el desarrollo de nuevas formas de relación con el medio ambiente. ABSTRACT The paper inquires into the problem of the technological exploitation of the world on the basis of Xavier Zubiri's and Georges Canguilhem's thought. It examines Zubiri's analysis of human intelligence and Canguilhem's thesis regarding the primordial nature of technological activity, its relation to science, and its role in the normativity of the organism. In both authors, the term Umwelt, translated as "surrounding-world" or behavioral environment, serves as the basis to establish the possibilities of technology in developing new forms of relationship with the environment. (shrink)

Our goal in this paper is to reassess the relationship between norms and life by drawing on the philosophy of Georges Canguilhem, particularly some of his unpublished lectures about teratology and sexual determination. First, we discuss the difficulties Canguilhem identified in the introduction of life and sexuality as objects of philosophical reflection. Second, we reassess Canguilhem’s understanding of normativity as rooted in life and the axiological activity of the living. Third, we analyze how Canguilhem drew from past and contemporary teratology (...) to conceive of the notions of anomaly and abnormality. Finally, we reconstruct Canguilhem’s analysis of a case of hermaphroditism, highlighting how he presented it as evidence that sexual determination is the result of a normative choice. One of the key contributions of the paper to scholarly literature on Canguilhem is a better understanding of his notion of choice, which was considered not the conscious and intentional act of a subject but rather an axiological activity of the living. We conclude by positioning Canguilhem’s concept of normativity and his belief that norms are produced by the living in relation to the naturalist/normativist divide in medicine. (shrink)

Resumo: Assim como o neokantismo, a fenomenologia e a filosofia analítica, também a epistemologia histórica francesa teve sua emergência no contexto da crise das ciências, na virada para o século XX. Por seus desdobramentos particulares, as obras de Gaston Bachelard e de Georges Canguilhem romperam, cada uma a seu modo, respectivamente com o neokantismo representado por Brunschvicg e por Alain. Neste artigo, propõe-se retirar algumas consequências epistemológicas, éticas e políticas dessas duas rupturas, analisando brevemente as particularidades de cada um dos (...) dois casos.: As well as neo-Kantianism, phenomenology and analytical philosophy, French historical epistemology also had its emergence in the context of the crisis of the sciences at the turn of the 20th century. Due to their own developments, the works of Gaston Bachelard and Georges Canguilhem broke, each in its path, respectively with the neo-Kantianism represented by Brunschvicg and by Alain. In this article, we propose to draw some epistemological, ethical, and political consequences of these two ruptures, briefly analyzing the particularities of each of the two cases. (shrink)

This paper considers the theoretical circumstances that urged Michel Foucault to analyse modern societies in terms of biopower. Georges Canguilhem’s account of the relations between science and the living forms an essential starting point for Foucault’s own later explorations, though the challenges posed by the molecular revolution in biology and François Jacob’s history of it allowed Foucault to extend and transform Canguilhem’s philosophy of error. Using archival research into his 1955–1956 course on “Science and Error,” I show that, for Canguilhem, (...) it is inauthentic to treat a living being as an error, even if living things are capable of making errors in the domain of knowledge. The emergent molecular biology in the 1960s posed a grave challenge, however, since it suggested that individuals could indeed be errors of genetic reproduction. The paper discusses how Canguilhem and Foucault each responded to this by examining, among other texts, their respective reviews of Jacob’s The Logic of the Living. For Canguilhem this was an opportunity to reaffirm the creativity of life in the living individual, which is not a thing to be evaluated, but the source of values. For Foucault, drawing on Jacob’s work, this was the opportunity to develop a transformed account of valuation by posing biopower as the DNA of society. Despite their disagreements, the paper examines these three authors as different iterations of a historical epistemology attuned to errancy, error, and experimentation. (shrink)

The importance given by historian and philosopher of science Georges Canguilhem to the role of practice, techniques, and experimentation in concept-formation was largely overlooked by commentators. After placing Canguilhem’s contributions within the larger history of historical epistemology in France, and clarifying his views regarding this expression, I re-evaluate the relation between concepts and experimental practices in Canguilhem’s philosophy of science. Drawing on his early writings on the relations between science and technology in the 1930s, on the Essai sur quelques problèmes (...) concernant le normal et le pathologique , and on La formation du concept de réflexe aux XVIIe et XVIIIe siècles , I argue that the formation and rectification of concepts in Canguilhem’s sense are intrinsically bound with the experimental, material, technical, and cultural contexts in which concepts are operationalized. (shrink)

Many historical studies tend to underline two central Kantian themes frequently emerging in Georges Canguilhem’s works: (1) a conception of activity, primarily stemming from the Critique of Pure Reason, as a mental and abstract synthesis of judgment; and (2) a notion of organism, inspired by the Critique of Judgment, as an integral totality of parts. Canguilhem was particularly faithful to the first theme from the 1920s to the first half of the 1930s, whereas the second theme became important in the (...) early 1940s. With this article, I will attempt to show that a third important theme of technique arose in the second half of the 30s also in the wake of Kant’s philosophy, especially Sect. 43 of the Critique of Judgment. This section, which states that technical ability is distinguished from a theoretical faculty, led Canguilhem to a more concrete and practical conception of activity. I will then suggest that it was by considering technique that the concept of normativity, which characterizes Georges Canguilhem’s philosophy of life, also took shape. (shrink)

Este artículo aborda el concepto de “normatividad biológica” de Georges Canguilhem, historiador y epistemólogo de las ciencias de la vida, basado en una comparación crítica con científicos y temas cruciales en la historia de las ciencias naturales contemporáneas. Científicos como Erwin Schrödinger y François Jacob, entre otros, y temas como orden, desorden, entropía, negentropía, catálisis, entre otros. Tal comparación, además de aclarar y situar la noción de normatividad, sustentó una reflexión sobre el origen, régimen y destino de la vida, en (...) una palabra, su vitalidad. Como resultado, fue posible su consideración desde una perspectiva estética. Resultado que alentó la aplicación del punto de vista estético al hacer humano y sus consecuencias sociales, más que eso, alentó una expectativa, apenas esbozada, de acción política en la condición de desviación y singularidad, es decir, como ejercicio de un estilo normativo de vida en sociedad. (shrink)

Se indaga el problema de la explotación técnica del mundo a partir de los pensamientos de Xavier Zubiri y Georges Canguilhem. Se examina el análisis zubiriano de la inteligencia humana y la tesis de Canguilhem sobre la originalidad de la actividad técnica, su relación con la ciencia y su papel en la normatividad del organismo. En ambos autores, el término Umwelt, traducido como “circun-mundo” o medio de comportamiento propio, sirve como base para establecer las posibilidades que tiene la técnica en (...) el desarrollo de nuevas formas de relación con el medio ambiente. (shrink)

In an unpublished text from the early postwar period, Georges Canguilhem deals with Nietzsche’s maxim “Become who you are!” Is this “apparently contradictory formula of a philosopher full of contradictions” really only seemingly inconsistent? Canguilhem regards it as a norm whose supposed metaphysical or objective content dissolves upon further analysis. So he here discerns a new instance of the same potential confusion he had already addressed in his classical essay on The Normal and the Pathological (1943). According to him, the (...) formula “become who you are!” must not be misunderstood in a naturalistic sense, a tendency from which not even Nietzsche himself, Canguilhem thinks, was entirely free. Besides the French philosophy of his time, his philosophical inquiry into “Become who you are!” critically engages two classic German Nietzsche scholars, Ernst Bertram and Karl Jaspers, as well as the French interpreters of the latter’s philosophy of Existenz, Mikel Dufrenne and Paul Ricœur. Finally, the paper highlights Nietzsche’s specific importance for Canguilhem and the ambivalence in his privileged relationship to the German thinker. (shrink)