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)

Recent years have seen a proliferation of publications reconsidering the emergence of sociology in France. The present review discusses and compares three of these works: S. Mosbah-Natanson’s bibliometric study on the fashion of sociology around 1900 (2017a); Th. Hirsch’s history of the idea of social time from the Durkheimians to Les Annales (2016a); and M. Joly’s enquiry into a purported sociological revolution in France and Germany at around the same time (2017a). Pushing respectively for a sociological, a historical and an (...) epistemological history of sociology, they represent three distinct ways of renewing the historiography of the social sciences. The article argues that qualities and limitations of these works alike suggest two challenges for the history of sociology: (1) integrating sociological, historical and epistemological competences in a comprehensive intelligence of sociological texts; and (2) accounting for the reflexivity involved in a social history of the social sciences. (shrink)

. This paper discusses the claim that science is “messy.” Part I argues first, that a good portion of today’s discussions about messy science is just a portrayal of familiar features of science in new terms. In the paper, I refer to this as “messy science talk.” Second, Part I draws out rhetorical functions of messy science talk, namely the denigration of science in the popular media and the celebration of the maverick. Part II identifies one way in which it (...) is enlightening to think about mess in current science, namely in reference to the problems that scientists need to address. It also shows that we do not need an entirely new conceptual inventory to analyze these problems. “Mess” and “wicked problems” were a theme in operations research and theories of social planning in the 1970s. These older analyses can illuminate important characteristics of today’s scientific problems. Wicked problems cut across different disciplines, engage different stakeholders, are fluid, and cannot even be clearly formulated. They are urgent and need to be addressed before sufficient evidence is in. (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)

To many contemporary scholars, Émile Meyerson is a footnote in an obscure history: early twentieth-century French philosophy of science. While the traditions of épistémologie are beginning to enjoy the scrutiny they deserve, Meyerson’s role remains overlooked. This article provides an overview of Meyerson’s philosophical project to help sow the seeds for a more systematic recuperation of its legacy. By orienting his work historically, I elucidate the nature of Meyerson’s critique of positivism, his distinctive method, and the implications these have for (...) the relation between science and philosophy. In particular, I show that for Meyerson positivisme refers not only to the doctrine of Auguste Comte but to a general philosophical tendency. Inseparable from Meyerson’s critique of this tendency is his implementation of a new methodology—épistémologie—according to which reason must be understood through the historical development of science. Épistémologie reveals that positivism not only is an incomplete account of science but is detrimental to its progress. Accordingly, Meyerson hopes to secure science’s right to function according to its own immanent principles, thereby providing prolegomena to all future metaphysics through a historical determination of the nature and limits of human reason. (shrink)

Les partisans de l’épistémologie historique ont souligné la manière dont les concepts nommés font partie des caractéristiques les plus fondamentales d’une science réussie. Les progrès de la compréhension, notamment par le développement de projets dont l’orientation est critique, peuvent être considérablement stimulés par la transformation d’aspects clés en concepts nommés, étant donné l’attention que ces derniers ont tendance à recevoir. Je me concentre ici sur un phénomène analytique qui, à mon sens, mérite de faire l’objet d’un concept nommé dans les (...) sciences sociales modernes. Je pense qu’une telle évolution serait bénéfique pour la discipline de l’économie moderne prise en particulier. En réalité, le phénomène en question a déjà fait l’objet d’un concept nommé en économie, et ce il y a plus de 100 ans. Il était associé à l’étiquette « économie néoclassique ». L’étiquette a survécu, tout comme le phénomène pour lequel elle a été, à juste titre, introduite. Mais l’étiquette et l’étiqueté se sont tous deux séparés, la première étant utilisée par la suite de manière essentiellement incohérente et le second persistant sans être articulé et de ce fait essentiellement non reconnu. Ainsi, il s’agit également d’explorer la manière dont tout cela s’est passé et de se demander s’il y a quelque chose à tirer de cette histoire. (shrink)

History Without Causality. How Contemporary Historical Epistemology Demarcates Itself From the Sociology of Scientific Knowledge. Contemporary proponents of historical epistemology often try to delimit their enterprise by demarcating it from the sociology of scientific knowledge and other sociologically oriented approaches in the history of science. Their criticism is directed against the use of causal explanations which are deemed to invite reductionism and lead to a totalizing perspective on science. In the present article I want to analyse this line of criticism (...) in what I consider are two paradigmatic works of contemporary historical epistemology: Lorraine Daston's und Peter Galison's Objectivity and Hans‐Jörg Rheinberger's Toward a History of Epistemic Things. I first present their arguments against the sociological and causal analysis of scientific knowledge and practice and then try to defend sociological work in the history of science against their charges. I will, however, not do so by defending causal explanations directly. Rather, I will show that the arguments against sociological analysis put forward in contemporary historical epistemology, as well as historical epistemology's own models of historical explanation and narration, bear problematic consequences. I argue that Daston, Galison and Rheinberger fail to create productive resonances between macro‐ and microhistorical perspectives, that they reproduce an internalist picture of scientific knowledge, and finally that Rheinberger's attempt to deconstruct the dichotomy between subject and object leads him to neglect questions about the political dimension of scientific research. (shrink)

The article shows the strategic analogies, but also the differences between Bachelard and Canguilhem on the use of the history of science for epistemology. It emphasizes the importance of the ideology for Canguilhem, and the conceptual essence he recognizes in the history of science, which is read in its internal specific differences and in its complex articulations with life and reality. No concept, in fact, comes from nothing. The link between history and epistemology is not however of subjection, but of (...) mutual influence. Canguilhem radicalizes the thought of Bachelard, and recognizes the historicity of every aspect of scientific knowledge, even of its less valued features and above all of errors. All aspects of Science are historical. The object of the history of science is not the object of the sciences, because it is always a discourse. This is why the history of science is inevitably linked to other forms of history. This opens up a pluralist conception of History and of Time, thinking of the sciences in their real body and no longer ideal or legal. Thus Canguilhem opens the way to the researches of Foucault and Serres. (shrink)

We provide an overview of three ways in which the expression “Historical epistemology” (HE) is often understood: (1) HE as a study of the history of higher-order epistemic concepts such as objectivity, observation, experimentation, or probability; (2) HE as a study of the historical trajectories of the objects of research, such as the electron, DNA, or phlogiston; (3) HE as the long-term study of scientific developments. After laying out various ways in which these agendas touch on current debates within both (...) epistemology and philosophy of science (e.g., skepticism, realism, rationality of scientific change), we conclude by highlighting three topics as especially worthy of further philosophical investigation. The first concerns the methods, aims and systematic ambitions of the history of epistemology. The second concerns the ways in versions of HE can be connected to versions of naturalized and social epistemologies. The third concerns the philosophy of history, and in particular the level of analysis at which a historical analysis should aim. (shrink)