Canguilhem’s Historiography of the Life Sciences

In this chapter, I revisit CanguilhemCanguilhem, Georges’s interpretation of BachelardBachelard, Gaston’s “normative turn” in epistemology and his application of the principle of recurrence to medicine and the life sciences. This discussion will first highlight that, according to Canguilhem, the laboratorylaboratory (history of science as) model pervading empirical approaches to the history and the philosophy of science in both the French and Anglophone contexts is wrongheaded: Canguilhem agrees with Bachelard’s view of science as normative, and of the philosopher as a judge presiding over the history of science. Secondly, I present Canguilhem’s critical presentism as both a refinement and an enlargement in scope of Bachelard’s normative presentism. As a consequence of this reformulation, the domain of historical epistemology is widened—with respect not only to other scientific domains but also to levels of scientificity other than those instantiated by sciences such as physics and mathematics. I conclude by showing how Canguilhem’s historiography is underpinned by ethical preoccupations concerning the “quantification” of normality, the determination of individuals by their milieu, and the mechanization of life—tendencies at play in both philosophy and the sciences and which Canguilhem criticizes via scientific concepts premised in a better grasp of their history.