Knowledge of life

223 Pages·2008·2.55 MB·English

by  Marrati

K n o w ledge of Li f e
George s Canguilh e m
Translated by Stefanos Geroulanos & Daniela Ginsburg Introduction by Paola Marrati & Todd Meyers
Knowledge ofLife
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PhotographofGeorgesCanguilhem,1993,courtesyofFranc¸oisDelaporte.
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Knowledge of Life
Georges Canguilhem
Edited by Paola Marrati and Todd Meyers
Translated by Stefanos Geroulanos and Daniela Ginsburg
fordham university press
new york 2008
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Copyright(cid:2)2008FordhamUniversityPress
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KnowledgeofLifewasfirstpublishedinFrenchasLaconnaissancede
lavie(cid:2)LibrairiePhilosophiqueJ.Vrin1965;(cid:2)1992,2003forthe
paperbackedition.
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e´trange`resetduServiceCultureldel’AmbassadedeFranceaux
Etats-Unis.
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PrintedintheUnitedStatesofAmerica
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Firstedition
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contents
Foreword:Life,asSuch vii
byPaolaMarratiandToddMeyers
Translators’Note
byStefanosGeroulanosandDanielaGinsburg xiii
Introduction:ThoughtandtheLiving xvii
PartOne
Method
1. ExperimentationinAnimalBiology 3
PartTwo
History
2. CellTheory 25
PartThree
Philosophy
3. Aspectsof Vitalism 59
4. MachineandOrganism 75
5. TheLiving andItsMilieu 98
6. TheNormalandthePathological 121
7. MonstrosityandtheMonstrous 134
v
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vi Contents
Appendixes
1. NoteontheTransition fromFibrillarTheorytoCell
Theory 149
2. NoteontheRelationship BetweenCellTheoryand
Leibniz’sPhilosophy 151
3. Extractsfromthe‘‘Discourssur l’anatomieducerveau’’
(‘‘DiscourseontheAnatomyoftheBrain’’),deliveredby
NicolasStenoinParisin1665tothe‘‘Messieursde
l’Assemble´edechezMonsieur The´venot’’ inParis 152
Notes 155
Bibliography 183
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foreword
Life,asSuch
PaolaMarratiandToddMeyers
Trainedinphilosophyandmedicine,GeorgesCanguilhem(1904–95)con-
tinues to exert tremendous influence on the history and philosophy of sci-
ence—aninfluencethatcanhardlybeoverstated.Canguilhem wasamajor
point of contact between philosophersin France throughout the twentieth
century, including figures such as Michel Foucault, Louis Althusser, Fran-
c¸ois Jacob, Jacques Lacan, Pierre Bourdieu, and Jacques Derrida, to name
onlyafew.Overhislongcareer,CanguilhemwasaprofessorinStrasbourg
andattheSorbonne,wherehetookoverfromGastonBachelardasdirector
of the Institut d’Histoire des Sciences et Techniques of the University of
Paris.Healsoservedasinspectorgeneralofphilosophyandlaterasamem-
beroftheFrenchagre´gationcommittee,apositionthatgavehimconsider-
ablepoweroverexaminationsandtraininginphilosophy.Inhismostwidely
knownwork,Essaisurquelquesproble`mesconcernantlenormaletlepathologique
(1943), later republished under the title Le normal et le pathologique (1966;
in English as The Normal and the Pathological), Canguilhem addressed how
theconceptsofthe‘‘normal’’andthe‘‘pathological’’ariseandtakeholdin
medicine.InLaformationduconceptdere´flexeauxXVIIetXVIIIsie`cles(1955),
heturnedhisattentiontotheformationoftheconceptof‘‘reflex’’andhow
it shaped ideas in the history of biology and physiology. Other works by
CanguilhemthathavebeentranslatedintoEnglishincludeIdeologyandRa-
tionalityintheHistoryoftheLifeSciences(1988)andAVitalRationalist:Selected
WritingsofGeorgesCanguilhem(1994).
vii
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viii Foreword
In the opening statements of his introduction to Knowledge of Life,
Georges Canguilhem strongly affirms what can be considered the guiding
threadnot onlyof theeight essayscollected inthe volumebut ofall of his
philosophical,historical,andepistemologicalworks.1AccordingtoCanguil-
hem, contrary to what a long and influential tradition holds, there is no
conflict between knowledge and life, no fundamental divide between the
supposedly pure and disinterested procedure of reason and science, on the
one hand, and the supposedly obscure and irrational power of life, on the
other. Canguilhem considers these two complementary assumptions to be
deeply misleading: they are prejudicial both to the task of the historian of
scienceandtothearguablyevenmoreimportanttaskofunderstandingthe
specificityofthehumanformoflife.
Knowledge, like any otherhuman activity, cannotavoid thequestion of
itsmeaning;thosewhobelievethatknowledgeexistsforitsownsake,asan
autonomousquestthatwouldsetapartthosewhopursueitfrom‘‘life’’and
its needs, in Canguilhem’s view, simultaneously admit the necessity of a
meaningofknowledgeandfailtoassignone.Theyfailtoseethatthinking
and knowing do not separate humans from life. Rather, they separate hu-
mansfromtheworldandtheirmilieu;theycreatethedistancenecessaryto
doubtandevaluate,tolookforwaystoovercomeobstacles,reduceinsecuri-
ties. Knowledge, for Canguilhem, is a ‘‘general method’’ for solving, di-
rectlyorindirectly,thetensionsthatarisebetweenhumansandthemilieu.
The conflict is not between knowledge and life but between humans and
the milieu: knowledge, as a human practice, is a way of transforming the
world, of finding a new balance with the milieu, of creating a new form of
life.In this sense,knowledgeis aformoflife, belongstolife, butthenlife,
human and nonhuman, cannot be considered a ‘‘blind and stupid’’ force.2
Torecognizethatknowledgeisneverforitsownsakebutbelongstoaform
of life that it constantly helps to renegotiate and modify calls not only for
a different conception of knowledge but also for an altogether different
understandingoflife.
Groundingknowledgeinlifedoesnot,forCanguilhem,amounttoques-
tioning the ambitions of reason and rationality, to underplaying science as
autilitariandeviceamongothers:heaims,onthecontrary,tohighlightthe
fact that life as such produces knowledge, that there is nothing essentially
irrationalaboutitspower,asisassumedbythosewhoopposelifetothought.
Humans do not need to separate themselves out from the realm of living
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Foreword ix
beings in order to think, to forget that they are animals; certainly, humans
exercise thought to a higher degree, and animals cannot solve most of the
problems that we set up for them. But this is because, Canguilhem notes,
theseareourproblems,nottheirs.Knowledge,asthecapacitytosolveprob-
lems, may and indeed does vary in different animals, but it is produced by
life.Hencethedoublemeaningofthetitle:‘‘knowledgeoflife’’issimulta-
neously and inseparably the knowledge we have of life when we take it as
onobject,andtheknowledgethatlifeitselfproduces.
The awareness of the reciprocal belonging of life and knowledge not
only undoes the deeply rooted divide between an abstract conception of
knowledge and a murky perception of life: it also demands respect for the
specificityof thelivingas anobjectof science. InCreative Evolution,Henri
Bergson insists on the intimate interplay between life and knowledge:
emerging from life as one of its products, knowledge in turn modifies life.
Human cognitive practices emerge as a particularly powerful instance of a
tendency that is expressed by all living beings: the capacity to solve prob-
lems in new and creative ways. The difference that constitutes living does
notconsistinaninexplicableforcethatwillforevereludesciencebutinthis
internal and active relation to knowledge.3 Canguilhem’s preoccupations
are certainly different from those of Bergson, but on this critical point he
acceptsthelegacyofCreativeEvolutionand,moregenerally,ofvitalism.
Canguilhem’s continually reaffirmed interest in the different traditions
of vitalism is not a purely historical one but, rather, methodological and
philosophical.Vitalism,asheunderstandsit,isfirstandforemostademand:
it cannot be identified with any specific medical or biological doctrine; it
does not consist in the affirmation of any particular set of properties that
woulddefine‘‘life.’’Whatvitalismaffirmsistheneedtokeepthequestion
of the sense of the relation between life and science open: such a question
in its general form is important from a philosophical or epistemological
perspective,butitbecomesparticularlypressingforthelifesciences,which
cannotignoreitwithoutcompromisingtheirowninquiries.Thespecificity
ofbiologyormedicine,forCanguilhem,isnotduetoastateofknowledge
thatisinsufficentlyadvanced(agapthatrecentdiscoveries,somemayargue,
wouldhavefilled)butisirreducible.Thespecificityofbiologyandmedicine
depends on the fact that living beings have a normative relation to life. By
‘‘normative,’’Canguilhemmeansthatlivingbeingsarenot,andcannot,be
indifferenttotheconditionsoftheirlife,bothtotheinternalconditionsof
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