Biology, reflexivity, and history: Canguilhem in his milieu
Gabel, Isabel
Biology, reflexivity, and history: Canguilhem in his milieu - 2018.
31
Canguilhem’s early philosophical development took place in the context of a growing preoccupation with biology among French philosophers in the 1930s and 1940s. This article examines several intellectual convergences to show that Canguilhem’s project of elaborating a philosophy based on the life sciences did not occur in isolation. For Raymond Aron, the epistemological crisis in French evolutionary theory revealed the contours of a philosophy of history. Maurice Caullery’s 1931 Le Problème de l’évolution, had argued that, while Lamarckian mechanisms couldn’t be demonstrated in the present, they had nevertheless operated in the past. For Aron, this epistemic leap disclosed the space of historical theory, as he elaborated in his 1939 Introduction à la philosophie de l’histoire. For Raymond Ruyer, it was embryology that transformed his philosophy from a mechanist formalism to a neo-materialist finalism. Only after learning about embryology from Étienne Wolff, when they were both POW’s during the Second World War, was Ruyer able to inject temporality into his philosophical materialism. Together, Aron and Ruyer demonstrate that Canguilhem’s encounter with biology did not occur in isolation, and highlight the importance of his thinking about history.
Biology, reflexivity, and history: Canguilhem in his milieu - 2018.
31
Canguilhem’s early philosophical development took place in the context of a growing preoccupation with biology among French philosophers in the 1930s and 1940s. This article examines several intellectual convergences to show that Canguilhem’s project of elaborating a philosophy based on the life sciences did not occur in isolation. For Raymond Aron, the epistemological crisis in French evolutionary theory revealed the contours of a philosophy of history. Maurice Caullery’s 1931 Le Problème de l’évolution, had argued that, while Lamarckian mechanisms couldn’t be demonstrated in the present, they had nevertheless operated in the past. For Aron, this epistemic leap disclosed the space of historical theory, as he elaborated in his 1939 Introduction à la philosophie de l’histoire. For Raymond Ruyer, it was embryology that transformed his philosophy from a mechanist formalism to a neo-materialist finalism. Only after learning about embryology from Étienne Wolff, when they were both POW’s during the Second World War, was Ruyer able to inject temporality into his philosophical materialism. Together, Aron and Ruyer demonstrate that Canguilhem’s encounter with biology did not occur in isolation, and highlight the importance of his thinking about history.
Réseaux sociaux