Abstract
In this Introduction we lay out the context of a ‘Continental philosophy of biology’ and suggest why Georges Canguilhem’s place in such a philosophy is important. There is not one single program for Continental philosophy of biology, but Canguilhem’s vision, which he referred to at one stage as ‘biological philosophy’, is a significant one, located in between the classic holism-reductionism tensions, significantly overlapping with philosophy of medicine, philosophy of technology and other themes moving away from the more common existential and phenomenological motifs of post-war European thought. Chapters examine (among other themes) his relation to Lebensphilosophie, to authors such as Kant, Nietzsche and Marjorie Grene, and to current theoretical biology
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Notes
- 1.
The term naturalism lends itself to various interpretations. In speaking here of heterodox naturalism, we take it in its broad and open-ended sense of striving for theories that are not in contradiction with the data and insights produced in the various sciences. There is, however, a much narrower sense that has played an important role in Anglo-American philosophy of biology, namely a more dogmatic or ideological form of naturalism, here called orthodox, in as far as it takes for granted that there is only one truth possible in and on science and scientific objectivity. In this regard, see Kitcher (1992) and Callebaut (1993).
- 2.
Canguilhem (2008, 70) writes: “the classical vitalist accepts the insertion of the living organism into a physical milieu to whose laws it constitutes an exception. Therein lies, in our opinion, the philosophically inexcusable fault. There cannot be an empire within an empire without there being no longer any empire, neither as container nor as contents. There can be only one philosophy of empire, that which refuses any division: imperialism.” We use ‘kingdom’ instead of ‘empire’ to render Canguilhem’s deliberate echo of Spinoza’s imperium in imperio, translated in English as ‘kingdom within a kingdom’. On vitalism in Canguilhem’s thought see Wolfe and Wong (2014), and in relation to contemporary biology such as Jacob, see Etxeberria and Wolfe (2018).
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This publication was made possible by the generous support of FWO, within the frame of the project G05081N, Vitalism: A Counter-History of Biology.
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Bianco, G., Wolfe, C.T., Van de Vijver, G. (2023). Introduction. In: Bianco, G., Wolfe, C.T., Van de Vijver, G. (eds) Canguilhem and Continental Philosophy of Biology. History, Philosophy and Theory of the Life Sciences, vol 31. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-20529-3_1
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