grene, m. - the philosophy of science of george canguilhem. a transatlantic view (2000)

8/13/2019 Grene, M. - The Philosophy of Science of George Canguilhem. a Transatlantic View (2000)

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MME MARJORIE GRENE

The philosophy of science of Georges Canguilhem : A

transatlantic view / L'pistmologie de Georges Canguilhem vue

de l'trangerIn: Revue d'histoire des sciences. 2000, Tome 53 n1. pp. 47-64.

RsumRSUM. A l'poque o Georges Canguilhem publiait ses uvres majeures, l'pistmologie anglo-amricaine tait domine

par le positivisme logique, ou empirisme logique. Aprs une caractrisation des styles propres de ces deux dmarches, plusieurs

des thses de l'empirisme logique sont compares avec la perspective de Canguilhem : 1. conception non historique ou

faiblement historique de l'pistmologie ; 2. sparation entre justification et dcouverte ; 3. unit de la science ; 4. choix

de la physique comme modle fondamental de l'pistmologie ; 5. rductionnisme ; 6. rles respectifs de la thorie et de

l'observation.

Abstract

SUMMARY. In the period in which Georges Canguilhem published his chief works, Anglo-American philosophy of science was

dominated by logical positivism or logical empiricism. After a comparison of the differing styles of the two enterprises, several

logical empiricist theses are contrasted with the corresponding view of Canguilhem : 1. philosophy of science as non-historical orweakly historical ; 2. the separation of justification from discovery ; 3. the unity of science ; 4. physics as the primary

model for philosophy of science ; 5. reductionism ; 6. the role of theory and observation.

Citer ce document / Cite this document :

GRENE MARJORIE. The philosophy of science of Georges Canguilhem : A transatlantic view / L'pistmologie de Georges

Canguilhem vue de l'tranger. In: Revue d'histoire des sciences. 2000, Tome 53 n1. pp. 47-64.

doi : 10.3406/rhs.2000.2074

http://www.persee.fr/web/revues/home/prescript/article/rhs_0151-4105_2000_num_53_1_2074
http://www.persee.fr/web/revues/home/prescript/author/auteur_rhs_185http://dx.doi.org/10.3406/rhs.2000.2074http://www.persee.fr/web/revues/home/prescript/article/rhs_0151-4105_2000_num_53_1_2074http://www.persee.fr/web/revues/home/prescript/article/rhs_0151-4105_2000_num_53_1_2074http://dx.doi.org/10.3406/rhs.2000.2074http://www.persee.fr/web/revues/home/prescript/author/auteur_rhs_185


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The phi losophy of scienceof Georges Canguilhem :

A transatlantic viewMarjorie Grene (*)

RSUM. A l poque o Georges Canguilhem publiait ses uvres majeures pistmologie anglo-amricaine tait domine par le positivisme logique, ouempirisme logique. Aprs une caractrisation des styles propres de ces deuxdmarches, plusieurs des thses de l empirisme logique sont compares avec laperspective de Canguilhem : 1. conception non historique ou faiblement historiquede l pistmologie ; 2. sparation entre justification et dcouverte ; 3. unitde la science; 4. choix de la physique comme modle fondamental de l pistmolog ie ; 5. rductionnisme ; 6. rles respectifs de la thorie et de l observation.MOTS-CLS. Epistemologie ; empirisme logique ; rductionnisme ; historicit.SUMMARY. In the period in which Georges Canguilhem published his chiefworks, Anglo-American philosophy of science was dominated by logical positivism orlogical empiricism. After a comparison of the differing styles of the two enterprises,several logical empiricist theses are contrasted with the corresponding view of Cangui lhem : 1. philosophy of science as non-historical or weakly historical ; 2. the separation of ustification from discovery ; 3. the unity of science ; 4. physics asthe primary model for philosophy of science ; 5. reductionism ; 6. the role of theoryand observation.KEYWORDS. Philosophy of science ; logical empiricism ; reductionism ;historicity.

When Georges Canguilhem published what he counted as hisfirst philosophical essay, Descartes et la technique , in 1937 (1),I was participating, two years after my doctorate, in Rudolf Car-nap s research seminar at the University of Chicago. Although my(*) Marjorie Grene, Department of philosophy, Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, VA 24061-0126, tats-Unis.(1) Canguilhem, 1937. See bibliography for full details.

Rev. Hist. Sci, 2000, 53/1, 47-63


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48 Marjorie Grenecommitment to logical positivism was brief, I did witness the development of the philosophy of science in the United States and inBritain from its Viennese beginning. It seemed to me, therefore,that I might offer on this occasion a comparison of some of theleading doctrines of the then received view in philosophy ofscience with the philosophical position on which Canguilhem s brilliant and subtle work in the history of medicine and of biologyappears to rest. From the nineteen-sixties on, of course, ThomasKuhn s account of scientific revolutions also played a prominent ole in many discussions ; I will say a little about that, too. Infact, Canguilhem himself has said it very well himself more of thatlater.Meantime, before I attempt to compare Canguilhem s concepts,arguments or perspectives with those of English speaking philosophersf science, I must take note of the striking difference in stylebetween the two. By this I mean partly style in the obvious linguistic sense. When I first submitted a manuscript to the BritishJournalfor the philosophy of science, in 1957 or 1958, 1 was admonished by the editor for fine writing . Everything had to be asspare and impersonal, I would even say as impoverished, as possible. But there is more than one form of discipline. Canguilhemhad of course the command of his native tongue that characterizedthe normalien ; his prose is immensely complex and subtle, and dotted with aperus that one wants to brood over endlessly. Take justone example of the latter :

[...] tre sujet de la connaissance, si l a priori est dans les choses, si leconcept est dans la vie, c est seulement tre insatisfait du sens trouv. Lasubjectivit, c est alors uniquement l insatisfaction. Mais c est peut-tre l lavie elle-mme. La biologie contemporaine, lue d une certaine manire, est, enquelque faon, une philosophie de la vie (2). What would the editor of British Journal for the philosophy ofscience have made of such a pronouncement? What is a poor,naive American academic to make of it ?

(2) Canguilhem, 1968, 364. It must be admitted that concept as used here has a narrower referent than in the study of the reflex (Canguilhem, 1955). In this essay, Le conceptet la vie (Canguilhem, 1968, 335-364), Canguilhem is discussing the way in which, first inthe development of the species concept, and, more recently, in the treatment of biologicalphenomena as based on information and therefore in a way on concepts , the very subjectmatter of biology turns out to be, not only the object of the scientist s concepts, but itselfconceptual.


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The philosophy of science of Georges Canguilhem 49However, the difference is not just linguistic. Circumstancespermitting, English can be as subtle, or as oracular, as French. The

difference, to borrow Fleck s term, is one of thought styles. Withthe signal exception of Ernest Nagel, who worked at Columbia inthe shadow of John Dewey, the leading figures at the origin of ourstyle of philosophy of science had come from a Central Europeanmovement in rebellion against German (or Germanic) tiefereBedeutungen (3). They produced, and we approved, a singularly drykind of literal-mindedness, detached from any broader, or deeper,intellectual tradition. I remember an adjuration by Carnap : wemust not say, This book is about Africa, but This bookcontains the word Africa (4). To put it in a word - a word central to Canguilhem s thinking, as the passage quoted above indicatesthey were doing away with sens (not just our sense, but theFrench sens). Of course I know that Carnap continued to modifyand alter his position ; perhaps Carl Hempel did, too, in someways ; but the direction was laid down in the beginning, as thedirection of Canguilhem s thought was, too, in different circumstances,within a different history.Admittedly, there does seem to be a paradox here. Within theFrench intellectual scene in the postwar decades, Canguilhem wasan important figure in opposition to the extreme subjectivism ofthe existentialist vogue (which was indeed all we heard of overseasin French philosophy). His stress on the concept, as in the passage Ihave quoted, is said to be indicative of this opposition (5). That is

(3) The case of Nagel I find puzzling. How does Dewey s thoroughly American pragmatism produce a position so consonant with that of a group of European exiles ? I can onlyguess that a rather vague respect for Science as such, without much immersion in thedetails of any scientific practice, could happily accept the over-generalizing approach characteristic of logical empiricism. But I have to leave this puzzle to specialists in Dewey and hisfollowers.(4) This remark occurs in Carnap, 1935, 61-65. 1 had forgotten its source and I am grateful to Professor Richard Creath of Arizona State University for finding it for me. Professorreath also points out that by 1937 Carnap would not have said this, since by then hehad become interested in semantics, while the Africa remark belongs to a purely syntacticonception of language.(5) Referring to une autre ligne de partage which crosses all the conventional oppositions,Michel Foucault writes C est celle qui spare une philosophie de l exprience, dusens, du sujet, et une philosophie du savoir, de la rationalit et du concept. (Foucault,1985, 4.) If the term sens figures here, it is in a different context from its place in Canguilhem s usage. In philosophies of the existentialist type, one is supposed to begin withmeanings detached from any concrete, historical milieu. The same contrast holds for exprience in the two enterprises.


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50 Marjorie Grenewhy, I assume, he is referred to by his English-language interpreterss a rationalist . Yet to our philosophers of science of thatperiod he would have appeared, if they had noticed him, to be justanother of those wild continental irrationalists, who, as my colleagues iked (still like ?) to say, never produce a single argument.Note, this is not just a case of Kuhnian incommensurability. Ithink I can offer a diagnosis, which my present concern with comparative philosophy of science forbids me to pursue at any length.But let me try to put it very briefly. Descartes left us all with a divided universe : there were, excepting God, only res cogitons and resextensa. By now (or by then, given that I am thinking of a timehalf a century ago), not only had God vanished for most of us, butsubstance, too, was no longer the evident support of an ontologythat it still appeared to be in the first decades of the seventeenthcentury. What happens in this situation to the cogitating mind ?Either it turns in on itself and becomes pure isolated willing, or itplays mathematical games in the hope of controlling the bits ofsensory data that are all that remain of extended substance in thewake of empiricist criticism. Both existentialism and its contemporaryogical positivism or logical empiricism, were positions takenby last-ditch Cartesians. Against both of these, it seems to me,Canguilhem was motivated in part, from early on, by a deep-seateddistrust of the cogito and all its consequences. What he offers usinstead is an original, hence unfamiliar, sometimes almost impenetrable, concept of thought, knowledge and rationality.After those hasty generalizations, let me turn to some particularcomparisons.1 / First, and most obviously, our philosophy of science program was antihistorical, while Canguilhem s philosophical insightswere rooted in the history of science. (When I say our , I mean,of course Anglo-American. I had no belief in this projectafter 1937-1938, but it is what our community prescribed and itsinfluence can still be found in many places.) The idea was thatthere must be something called the scientific method, a single technique that was in essence the same everywhere and forever and thiswas what philosophers of science had reverentially to examine andanalyze. If there was a history of science, it consisted in a revolution that initiated science and then a linear progression toward what we now know , a process that would continue in the samelinear way indefinitely. In any case, what mattered was not what


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The philosophy of science of Georges Canguilhem 51happened in the history of science, but its logical reconstruction :the formulation of its results or its possible results and thus thevindication of its methods. For Canguilhem, on the contrary, philosophy of science was a support for the history of science, anindispensable support, but meaningless apart from history. Andhistory of science, as he put it in the concluding chapter of hiswork on the formation of the reflex concept, doit tre critecomme une histoire et non comme une science, comme une aventureet non comme un droulement (6) . Our philosophy of scienceaimed at substituting a formalization of science for adventure ;Canguilhem s was intended to clarify that adventure.

To put it another way, the ideal of logical empiricism was toapproach science scientifically. Canguilhem s ideal was to understandcience as a complex family of disciplined human efforts toapproach the truth about something in the real world. Thus forhim the object of the history of science was utterly different fromthe object of science itself. He put this very clearly in the introductiono the tudes d histoire et de philosophie des sciences :

L objet en histoire des sciences n a rien de commun avec l objet de lascience. L objet scientifique, constitu par le discours mthodique, estsecond, bien que non driv, par rapport l objet naturel, initial [...]L histoire des sciences s exerce sur ces objets seconds, non naturels, culturels,mais n en drive pas plus que ceux-ci ne drivent des premiers. L objetdu discours historique est, en effet, l historicit du discours scientifique, entant que cette historicit reprsente l effectuation d un projet intrieurementnorme, mais traverse d accidents, retarde ou dtourne par des obstacles,interrompue de crises, c est--dire de moments de jugements et devrit (7). Moreover, philosophy of science, which concerns this history, willbe at a still further remove from the objects of science itself. L histoire des sciences, Canguilhem writes in the introduction justquoted, concerne une activit axiologique, la recherche de lavrit (8). Thus the scientist is already exercising an axiologicalactivity , which the historian in turn studies by his (her) norms,while the philosopher reflects, at yet another axiological level, onthe activities that are the historian s objects, and presumably alsoon the norms in the light of which the historian studies his (her)

(6) Canguilhem, 1955, 167.(7) Canguilhem, 1968, 17.(8) Ibid., 19.


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52 Marjorie Grenesubject. This is a far cry from the pristine scientific method touted by supporters of the received view.

It may be objected that Kuhn s revolutionary theory of scientificevolutions did after all introduce an historical dimension intothe philosophy of science. But this is history without history, andcertainly history inadequate as subject for, or as subject to, philosophical reflection. Quite apart from the failure of Kuhn s simpleschema to fit much in the history of science (9), there is the odditypointed out by Canguilhem in the first chapter of his Idologie etrationalit dans l histoire des sciences de la vie, that, while Kuhnuses terms like paradigm and normal science , which suggestphilosophical criticism, his account remains on the level of socialpsychology. It s just one paradigm after another, with no adequatephilosophical or historical account of the transition. Indeed, Kuhnhimself acknowledged this in his preface, although his followers didnot, I think, in general, notice this qualification (10).2 /Allied to the non-historical approach of Anglo-Americanphilosophy of science was its firm commitment to the separation oftwo contexts : the context of discovery and the context of justification.iscovery had allegedly no bearing on the scientific import ofits results. Clearly, Kekul daydreaming by the fire has no scientific connection with the structure of the benzene ring. What weneed to study is the logical relation between the observations onwhich generalizations, laws and theories (somehow) rest and thefurther observations that (somehow) flow from them. The famoustag that all observation is already theory-laden came to qualify alittle the original positivist navet of the program, but did not, itseems to me, in any way alter its essentials. There were also fromtime to time defenders of discovery, and hence of research, as proper material for philosophical reflection, but they were relativelyoutlying figures (11).To a historian of science as subtle and sensitive as Canguilhem,clearly, such a separation of contexts is nonsense. It is discoverythat constitutes justification and justification solidifies discovery.As Canguilhem remarks of the reflex, what had been a concept

(9) See Mayr, 1994. Mayr s critique of Kuhn seems to be excellent; however, hissketch of what he considers the only alternative ( Darwinian evolutionary epistemology )is another question(10) Canguilhem, 1977, 23. Cf. Kuhn, 1962, XL(11) See below, note 34.


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The philosophy of science of Georges Canguilhem 53becomes a percept - though before that, of course, it had tobecome a concept (12). Nor is there any one formula for this complicated, often devious, chancy development. Neither justificationnor discovery is one unambiguous process : justificationis not just logical, discovery is not just whimsical and irrational.And the two are intimately interwoven from start to finish - ifthere is a finish.Come to think of it, what was justification in this program ? Justification is a normative term, it suggests an evaluation. Butour program was one that allegedly excluded values. Values aresubjective, science is objective, or so it seemed. For Canguilhem, onthe contrary, norms were essential, first, to the activity of scientiststhemselves, and then, reflectively, to the historian as well as thephilosopher of science. Specifically, the scientist is engaged invalue-bound activity insofar as (s)he (13) is seeking the truth. Notthat, for Canguilhem, there is the truth to be found : this search isalways subject to failure, to distraction, to error. Canguilhem haseven been characterized as a philosopher of error (14). And it istrue that he stresses the fallibility of scientists beliefs, the strangedelays and obstacles that characterize the history of concepts likethe reflex arc or of doctrines like the cell theory (15). Nevertheless,it is the search for truth that is in question. And that is somethingneither the proponents of the received view nor Kuhn and Kuh-nians could comfortably admit. Science was supposed to float happily above the phenomena ; truth was allowed, if at all, only inTarski s austere formula (16). Sir Karl Popper is the paradigm casehere : all we can ever know is that we are mistaken (17). Maybeso ; but we can sometimes hope we are right : that was the upshotof Michael Polanyi s program of personal knowledge , whichwas almost entirely ignored by the reigning party in philosophy ofscience (18).The same aversion to truth as a norm also haunted Kuhn swork. In the passage I quoted above, Canguilhem refers to I em-

(12) Canguilhem, 1955, 161.(13) S(he) he or she (N.D.L.R.).(14) Foucault, 1985, 14 Une philosophie de l erreur [...] (15) See Canguilhem, 1955 ; La thorie cellulaire, in Canguilhem, 1952, 43-80.(16) Tarski, 1944.(17) Popper, 1959. Carl Hempel s The theoretician s dilemma appears to me to suggest a similar hesitancy about admitting the scientist s search for truth (Hempel, 1958).(18) See below, note 34.


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54 Marjorie Grenebarras dont tmoigne la Postface de la deuxime dition de Structuredes rvolutions scientifiques, quand il s agit de savoir ce qu ilconvient d entendre par vrit de la thorie (19) . A recent, verydetailed account of Kuhn s life-long reflections decidedly confirmsthis judgment : he was never able to assimilate either to normal orto revolutionary science the conception of active persons or activecommunities engaged in trying to answer the question how something in the real world really works : in other words, in the searchfor truth. His final position, like the original one, is at bottom rela-tivistic : there can be truth only within the confinement of whatis still in effect a particular paradigm, or conceptual world (20).

3 / For the logical empiricists, further, if there was one scientificethod, their hope was that there would ultimately be, inobeisance to it, but one science. They proudly inscribed on theirbanner the theme of the unity of science, whether in terms of thereduction of concepts or of theories. I remember a long and heateddebate at one of C. H. Waddington s theoretical biology conferencesbout the sad fact that the Volterra-Lotka equations could notbe stated in terms of quantum mechanics. Indeed, oddly enough,Kuhn s Structure, which challenged this ideal with its vision ofincommensurability, was first published as a volume in the International ncyclopedia of unified science (21).To this vision of a scientific Utopia - literally a Utopia, since itwould indeed be nowhere -, Canguilhem was of course radicallyopposed. In discussing the work of Claude Bernard, he twice quotes statement of Bachelard :

Les concepts et les mthodes, tout est fonction du domained exprience ; toute la pense scientifique doit changer devant une exprience nouvelle ; un discours sur la mthode scientifique sera toujours un discours de circonstance, il ne dcrira pas une constitution dfinitive de l espritscientifique (22). Now of course our philosophers of science would also have insistedthey were founding everything ultimately on experience : onehad to start with data. But this was experience in the abstract and

(19) Canguilhem, 1977.(20) See Hoyningen-Heune, 1993. Canguilhem remarks that Kuhn was still too muchunder the influence of logical empiricism (Canguilhem, 1977).(21) Kuhn, 1962. The cover of this first edition reads International Encyclopedia of unified sciences, vol. I-II Foundations of the unity of science, vol. II, no. 2 Thomas S. Kuhn,The Structure of scientific revolutions.(22) Canguilhem, 1968, 146, 171.


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The philosophy of science of Georges Canguilhem 55impoverished sense of the empiricist tradition : ideally, Lockeansimple ideas or Humean simple impressions. Even theory-ladenobservation was combined from two abstractions : high-flowntheories and lowly data. The concept of experience entailed in Can-guilhem s reflections is very different. He introduces Bachelard spronouncement in an account of Claude Bernard s approach tophysiology. He writes :

Qui veut expliquer une fonction doit d abord en explorer l allure lmme o elle trouve la fois son sige et son sens, dans l organisme (23). That is why, he continues, Claude Bernard s words, je mesuis dlivr des rgles en me jetant travers champs , [...] doiventnous apparatre [...] expressment comme la gnralisation rflchiede l enseignement tir d une aventure intellectuelle intgralementvcue (24). So we are back with the practice of science as an intel

lectual adventure ; but there is no unifying formula for an adventure, or, except in the most global and superficial sense, is the history of science a single adventure. For each adventurer, or team ofadventurers, it is rooted in circumstance : in the particular interests,concepts, hopes of the investigator and his contemporaries, in theculture of institutions and of nations. All of Canguilhem s worktestifies to this truth - especially the work on the reflex or on thedevelopment of the cell theory, but also the essays on AugusteComte, on Claude Bernard, or, for example the essay on the biological sciences since Darwin (25).From this perspective, the unity of science program was thoroughly misguided from its very start. True, as an honest pluralistin philosophy of science, one should recognize that there have beensome scientists who have worked explicitly toward a unifiedscience : Einstein, for example, at least for part of his career, orDavid Bohm. But to pronounce, as I have heard a prominent philosopher of science do, that all scientists are always seeking to contribute to the unity of science is to utter pure nonsense. In a givenresearch project, to be sure, the investigator is seeking coherence ;but that is not the same as the coherence of all knowledge in onegrand system. Granted, the coherence a particular scientist or

(23) Canguilhem, 1977, 146.(24) Ibid.(25) Canguilhem, 1955 ; Canguilhem, 1952, 43-80 ; Canguilhem, 1968, 61-98, 127-172 ;Canguilhem, 1977, 101-120.


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56 Marjorie Grenegroup of scientists is after does indeed go beyond their individualinterests. There is, as Canguilhem stressed, an internal dialectic inthe development of a concept - like that of the reflex or the cell asthe unit of living tissues - that transcends the individual s interestsor even the individual s lifetime (26). Again, however, this is not aglobal development, encompassing the objects of all sciences everywhere, but the expression, within a given historical and culturalsetting, of the grasp of one special facet of an inexhaustible reality.Nor is there an ultimate goal for these histories. On the contrary,uw-satisfaction is inescapable. The dialectic of concepts, after all, iscarried by the efforts, successes and failures of living human individuals, and perhaps, as Canguilhem seems to be suggesting in theenigmatic passage I quoted at the start, dissatisfaction is life itself.4 / Life, or the living, was always Canguilhem s subject. Thus itis tempting, and, it seems to me, in a sense correct, to emphasizethat the received view based its claims on physics, or on itsconception of physics, while Canguilhem s ideas in the philosophyof science sprang from his study of questions in medicine and inbiology. This can scarcely be a causal claim, however, since Bachelard whose work Canguilhem admired and often cited as canonical as himself interested primarily in the mathematical sciences.It isn t necessary, clearly, if one starts from physics, to philosophizein the spirit of logical empiricism. On the other hand, it does seemto be the case that if one begins from biology, let alone from astudy of the normal and the pathological in medicine, there is littlereason to adopt a view that is positivistic on the one hand andover-logicizing on the other. Canguilhem describes the effort tomake pathology purely quantitative, and shows how it failed. Yetthe alternative, for him, was no overarching idealistic axiology ,but concern with the normative aspect of biological, and indeed, ofthis or that scientific endeavor, in whatever field. This concern reaches from the original thesis on the normal and the pathological tothe much later lecture, La question de la normalit dans l histoirede la pense biologique , but, again, always in the context of particular investigations of particular episodes in the history of the d isciplines in question (27). My own view is that it comes more natu-

(26) An account of this approach is given, for example, in the introductory paragraphsof La thorie cellulaire (Canguilhem, 1952, 43-47).(27) Canguilhem, 1966 ; La question de la normalit dans l histoire de la pense biologique, in Canguilhem, 1977, 122-139.


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The philosophy of science of Georges Canguilhem 57rally to think concretely and realistically if one starts from thestudy of living things. Long ago when I was visiting biology teachers in British secondary schools, I came across a teacher whocomplained of the standardization of instructions for experimentsin her classes. They tell us, she said, to put an earthworm in a jar,but the earthworm may not like it in the jar. Could a quark or ameson fail to like some physicist s experimental technique ? Whocan tell ? Certainly, the grounding of Canguilhem s philosophy ofscience in his detailed and subtle investigations in the history ofbiology and medicine bears some relation to his conception of ascientist s pursuit of truth as an intellectual adventure integrallylived . Scientists are alive and their activities, though cultural andnot only natural, are variants on the general theme(s) that characterize ife itself. What Canguilhem says of attempts to explain, orbetter, to understand, machines, can be applied to the outcome, orthe process, of any scientific or engineering activity : to understandthe machine, he writes, c est l inscrire dans l histoire humaine eninscrivant l histoire humaine dans la vie, sans mconnatre toutefoisl apparition avec l homme d une culture irrductible la simplenature (28) .

Yet there seems to be a contradiction here, or at least an uncomfortable tension. As we noticed earlier, Canguilhem contrasts theobjects of science with the object of the history of science ; only thelatter, it appears, entails norms or values. But if the biologicalsciences have organisms, centers of behavior, as their objects, whatis, after all, the difference between the objects of these sciences andthose of the history of science ? Surely every life is an adventure ;norms or values are involved at every level in their study.At first sight the answer is simple, since the remark I quotedearlier about the difference in kind between the objects of science

and those of the historian of science has to do with the physical,not the biological, sciences. It follows a discussion of such works asDijksterhuis s Mechanisierung des Weltbildes, Koyr s tudes gali-lennes or Metzger s La Gense de la science des cristaux (29). Thusit is non-biological sciences that are concerned here ; and in thefirst case at least it is the transfer of the (non-biological) scientist sattitude to the history of science that Canguilhem is criticizing.(28) Canguilhem, 1952, 120.(29) Canguilhem, 1968, 12.


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58 Marjorie GreneHere we do have a sharp distinction between the objects of thescientist and those of the historian, hence also of the philosopherof science. In the biological case, which is closer to Canguilhem sown practice, the distinction is subtler and more complicated.Let us consider this situation a little more closely. If we includethe sciences of life, how do the objects of these sciences differ fromthose of the historian of science ? It was with medicine that Can-guilhem began his historical researches, and medicine itself, heinsisted, begins with the patient, the individual sufferer. Here ifanywhere we surely have a normative content. On the other hand,it can be argued that medicine is only partly science, partly therapy, and it is its therapeutic aspect that concerns the patient.True, history in its usual sense aims at understanding rather thancuring, but both history and medicine in one way or another entailnorms, while the science medicine relies on may be well be, andsometimes is, purely physico-chemical.So far so good. But then what of the biological sciences, whichare as theoretical as any other scientific disciplines ? If, as Canguil-hem insists, all living things are to be understood only in relationto norms of existence and of action, isn t the biologist already studying axiological activities (30) ? How does the history of thesesciences differ from the sciences themselves ? How is Canguilhemwriting the history of the concept of the reflex different from Willis n a different milieu, first forming the concept of the reflex ? Orrather, how do their objects differ ? Canguilhem is reporting, andanalyzing, the activities of a number of agents and eliciting fromthis story the history of a concept. Willis is seeking to understand aparticular phenomenon in the nervous system. In ordinary parlance- thanks to the currency of Pavlovian discourse - we speak of reflex action as automatic, not, it would appear, in any significantway axiological . And Willis did coin the term, accordingto Canguilhem s account, in analogy to the reflection of light. Yetit seems clear by now that every biological activity entails somekind of order, that is, some norm and the possibility of error. Canguilhem is dealing, again, with cultural phenomena, which expressa more complex and many-leveled cluster of norms ; but some nor-mativity is involved at every level, in the objects of the biologist sresearch as well as in those of the historian.

(30) Canguilhem, 1968, 19.


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The philosophy of science of Georges Canguilhem 595 / The unity of science program, together with the priority ofphysics as their model science, supported in our philosophers of

science the hope of achieving a total vision of the material world,from which human hopes and desires - including human science ? -would be as good as excluded. In contrast, Canguilhem s concernwith the sciences of life shows him the unattainability, and even fatuity of this enterprise. Living things, including scientists, relyon their environments for their existence, but always as centers ofthose environments : it is precisely the relation between center andmilieu that makes a life. Such a relation would be levelled tonothingness in the reductionist s global vision. Indeed, in his worldthere would be no vision. Canguilhem puts this point strikingly inthe last several paragraphs of his essay on Le vivant et sonmilieu . Let me quote just the final two : La prtention de la science dissoudre dans l anonymat de l environnement mcanique, physique et chimique ces centres d organisation,d adaptation et d invention que sont les tres vivants doit tre intgrale,c est--dire qu elle doit englober le vivant humain lui-mme. Et l on sait bienque ce projet n a pas paru trop audacieux quelques savants. Mais il fautalors se demander, d un point de vue philosophique, si l origine de la sciencene rvle pas mieux son sens que les prtentions de quelques savants. Car lanaissance, le devenir et les progrs de la science dans une humanit laquelle on refuse ajuste titre, d un point de vue scientiste et mme matrialistea science infuse doivent tre compris comme une sorte d entrepriseassez aventureuse de la vie. Sinon il faudrait admettre cette absurdit que laralit contient d avance la science de la ralit comme une partie d elle-mme. Et l on devrait se demander quel besoin de la ralit pourrait biencorrespondre l ambition d une dtermination scientifique de cette mmeralit. Mais si la science est l uvre d une humanit enracine dans la vieavant d tre claire par la connaissance, si elle est un fait dans le monde enmme temps qu une vision du monde, elle soutient avec la perception unerelation permanente et oblige. Et donc le milieu propre des hommes n est

pas situ dans le milieu universel comme un contenu dans son contenant. Uncentre ne se rsout pas dans son environnement. Un vivant ne se rduit pas un carrefour d influences. D o l insuffisance de toute biologie qui, par soumission complte l esprit des sciences phyico-chimiques, voudrait liminerde son domaine toute considration de sens. Un sens, du point de vue biologique et psychologique, c est une apprciation de valeurs en rapport avec unbesoin. Et un besoin c est, pour qui l prouve et le vit, un systme de rfrence irrductible et par l absolu (31). (31) Canguilhem, 1952, 153-154.


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60 Marjorie GreneHere again is that mysterious little word sens . In fact, these twoparagraphs, with the three that precede them, sum up magnificentyuch of what I have been trying to say about the contrast between Canguilhem s philosophy of science and the major Anglo-American practice of the same era.6 / Finally, let me add a little detail to that very sweeping contrast. Logical empiricism dealt in the coinage of theory , laws and observation . Ideally, laws were supposed to begeneralizations from observed data, generalizations which were inturn explained by theories. You did a lot of readings of temperature ressure and volume, thus you got to the gas laws, and theseyou explained by the kinetic theory of gases. It seems to me thatwhen the slogan All observation is theory laden came into fashion, laws rather receded from view. But in any case it was a manipulation of two or three constant ingredients that was supposed toconstitute the core of science. It was difficult to specify preciselywhat an observation was ; laws as contrary-to-fact conditionalswere puzzling ; but what was crucial to this whole enterprise, Ibelieve, was the stress on theory. If it is logical reconstruction oneis after, I suppose this is reasonable. But if one looks at scientificpractice, it is not grand theories that are the concern at most timesof most working scientists. Every working biologist, one wouldhope, accepts evolutionary theory as background, more or lessremote, for his or her current projects, but it s something muchmore down to earth, like the structure or function of this particulargene, that he or she is trying to unfathom.Thus Canguilhem, staying much closer to the practice ofscience, is concerned less with theories than with concepts. Hemakes this point explicitly in the introduction to his one book-length study in the history of biology, to which I have alreadyreferred a number of times, that is, La Formation du concept durflexe aux xvif et xvnf sicles, first published in 1955 (32). Thehistory of the reflex as previously understood, he tells us, has beendistorted by two prejudices. The second is the mistaken notion thatonly the mechanistic tradition has produced advances in biologicalknowledge. In fact, as Canguilhem clearly shows in the course ofhis narrative, it is positions closer to vitalism that should havemuch of the credit for the major steps in this development. The

(32) Canguilhem, 1955, 3-7.


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The philosophy of science of Georges Canguilhem 61first prejudice, the one that concerns us here, consiste penserqu un concept ne peut d abord apparatre que dans le contexte d unethorie ou du moins dans une inspiration heuristique homognes ceux dans lesquels les faits d observation correspondants seront plustard interprts (33) . What Canguilhem is concerned with here isthe common error of interpreting past science as the past of presentscience - an historical point. But this warning has, it seems to me,also a clear philosophical implication : there is no necessary uniformity etween theory and observation, then or now, such as wouldpermit the constant and unequivocal interplay between them envisaged by thinkers in the logical empiricist tradition. A scientificconcept, like that of the reflex, exhibits in its history a subtle andunformalizable interplay of many factors : different basic beliefs,like faith in mechanism or vitalism, different techniques of observationnd analysis, and so on. In the history Canguilhem is recountingven national prejudice (in the neglect of Prokoschka s work)or personal self-aggrandizement (in the case of Marshall Hall)come into play. So it is, presumably, in the history of any concept,and that is a complexity that an adequate philosophy of sciencealso needs to acknowledge. That takes me back in a way to myfirst point : the anhistoricity, or impoverished historicity, of themain Anglo-American thought style(s) in the philosophy of science,at least in the period in which Canguilhem was a leader in French epistemology , was responsible at least in part for its failure tomake contact with, or to understand, the richness and complexityof scientific practice.In conclusion I must confess that the comparison I have beenpresenting is, from a Canguilhemian perspective, much toosimple. As I remarked earlier, there were always some exceptionsto the regnant received view . There was N. R. Hanson s Patterns of discovery, which was published in 1958. Michael Polanyi sPersonal Knowledge appeared in the same year ; his Science, faithand society had been published in 1946 (34), and the Gifford lectures on which the former book was based were delivered in theearly fifties, at about the same time as Canguilhem s history ofthe reflex concept or his Connaissance de la vie. However, as Ialso noted earlier, such thinkers had no major effect on the stan-

(33) Canguilhem, 1955, 3.(34) Hanson, 1988 ; Polanyi, 1946 and 1958.


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62 Marjorie Grenedard position. More recently there have been other efforts withinthe Anglo-American philosophical community to reflect on thenature of science in closer relation to scientific practice, but thatwould be another story (35). What I wanted to do here was tohighlight some of the theses of Canguilhem s philosophy ofscience, chiefly as one gleans it from his historical work, by comparing them with the dominant views of Anglo-American philosophers f science in the same period.

BibliographyCanguilhem Georges1937 Descartes et la technique, in Travaux du IXe congrsnal de philosophie, I, 2 (Paris : Hermann, 1937), 77-85 ; reprintedn Cahiers philosophiques, LXIX (Dec. 1996), 93-100.1952 La Connaissance de la vie, 2nd d. (Paris : Vrin, 1965) ; 1st d.(Paris : Hachette, 1952).1955 La Formation du concept du rflexe aux xvir et xviif sicles,2nd d. (Paris : Vrin, 1977) ; 1st d. (Paris Vrin, 1955).1966 Le Normal et le pathologique (Paris : PUF) ; this is an expandededition of Essai sur quelques problmes concernant le normal et

le pathologique (Clermont-Ferrand Impr. La Montagne, 1943), Publications de la facult des lettres de l universit de Strasbourg , fasc. 100.1968 tudes d histoire et de philosophie des sciences concernant levivant et la vie, 7th d. (Paris : Vrin, 1994) ; 1st d., 1968.1977 Idologie et rationalit dans l histoire des sciences de la vie,3rd d. (Paris : Vrin, 1993) ; 1st d. (Paris : Vrin, 1977).Carnap Rudolf1935 Philosophy and logical syntax (London : . Paul, Trubner andTrench, 1935) ; reprint (Bristol : Thoemmes Press, 1996).Foucault Michel1985 La vie : L exprience et la science, Revue de mtaphysique et demorale, XC/1, 3-14.Galison Peter1987 How experiments end (Chicago : Univ. of Chicago Press).Hanson Norman R.1958 Patterns of discovery (Cambridge : Cambridge Univ. Press).

(35) See for example the collection edited by Nickles, 1980 ; or some of the recent workon experiment, e. g. Galison, 1987. A recent work in English but in a more continental mode is Rheinberger, 1997.


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The philosophy of science of Georges Canguilhem 63Hempel Carl G.1958 The theoretician s dilemna : A study in the logic of theorytruction, in Carl G. Hempel, Aspects of scientific explanation(New York MacMillan, 1964) ; 1st published in MinnesotaStudies in philosophy of science, II (1958), 37-98.Hoyningen-Heune Paul1993 Reconstructing scientific revolutions (Chicago : Univ. of ChicagoPress).Kuhn Thomas S.1962 The Structure of scientific revolutions (Chicago : Univ. ofcago Press).Mayr Ernst1994 The advance of science and scientific revolutions, Journal of thehistory of the behavioral sciences, XXX (Oct.), 328-334.Nickles Thomas1980 Scientific discovery : Case studies (Dordrecht : Reidel).Polanyi Michael1946 Science, faith and society (London : Oxford Univ. Press).1958 Personal Knowledge (London : Routledge-Kegan Paul and Chicago : Univ. of Chicago Press).Popper Karl1959 The Logic of scientific discovery (London : Hutchinson).Rheinberger Hans-Jrg1997 Toward a history of epistemic things : Synthesizing proteins inthe test tube (Stanford, California : Stanford Univ. Press).Tarski Alfred1944 The semantic conception of truth, Philosophy and phenomenolo-gical research, IV, 341-375.


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THEORIAREVISTA DE TEORIA, HISTORIA Y FUNDAMENTOS DE LA CIENCIAUNDADA EN 1952 - SEGUNDA EPOCAUNDADOR: Migud SANCHEZ-MAZAS (t)evista asociada a la Sociedad de Logica, Metodologa y Filosofia de la Ciencia en Espaaa la Sociedad Espafiola de Filosofia Analitica

Vol. 14 Septicmbre / September 1999/3SU MARIO/ CONTENTS

ARTICULOS / ARTICLESFrancisco SALTO,Jos M. MENDEZ (Salamanca) 407-41 1 Two Extensions ofLewis S3 with Peines Law

Javier VILANOVA Madrid) 413-429 Un andlisis del concepto de cognoscibilidad desde lasemdntica de mundos posibles (An Analysis of theNotion of Knowability in the Field of PossibleWorlds Semantics)Manuel A. SELLES (Madrid) 431-460 Isaac Newton y el infinitesimal (Isaac Newton sInfinitesimals)Jesus P. ZMORA BONILLA (Madrid) 461-488 The Elementary Economics ofScientific ConsensusOlimpia LOMBARDI (Buenos Aires) 489-5 1 0 Elfin de la omnisciencia: la respuesta de Prigogine alproblema de la irreversibilidad (The End ofOmniscience: Prigogine s Answer to the Problem ofI reversibility)Agustin VICENTE (San Sebastin) 511-524 Sobredeterminacincausalmente-cuerpoiMmd-BodyCausal Overdetermination)NOTAS /NOTES

Maria Jos GUERRA (La Laguna) 527-549 Bioticay gnero: problemasy controversias (Bioethicsand Gender Problems and Controversies)RECENSIONES Y LIBROS RECIBIDOS / BOOKREVIEWSAND BOOKS RECEIVEDCRONICAS Y PROXIMAS REUNIONES / NOTICESAND ANNOUNCEMENTSSUMARIO ANALITICO / SUMMARYSUMARIO DEL VOL 14 / CONTENTS OF VOL 14

REDACCION / EDITORIAL OFFICEFSFAflAISPAIN. CALIJ-THEORIA, Alcalde Jos Elosegui, 275, E 20015, Apartado 1.594, 20080 San Sebastin,Espana.Tel.: (34 943) 29.17.25. Fax (A. Ibarra): (34 943) 31.10.56. E-mail: [email protected]/FOREIGN COUNTRIES: Asociadn Cultural Espana-THEORIA, Case 2.730, 1211 Geneve-2,Suisse. DISTRIBUCION / DISTRIBUTIONPara iJUSOJpciones. numros atrasaHos y grflhjfffi dff tiirCCCiflfl^ For subscriptions, back volumes and chances of ddress:Servicio Editorial, Universidad del Pais Vasco, Apartado 1.397, E 48080 Leioa, Espaa.Tel.: (34 94) 601.20.00 (ext. 5126). Far (34 94) 480.13.14.THEORIA

grene, m. - the philosophy of science of george canguilhem. a transatlantic view (2000)

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