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In this article I assess Georges Canguilhem's historical epistemology with both theoretical and historical questions in mind. From a theoretical point of view, I am concerned with the relation between history and philosophy, and in particular with the philosophical assumptions and external norms that are involved in history writing. Moreover, I am concerned with the role that history can play in the understanding and evaluation of philosophical concepts. From a historical point of view, I regard historical epistemology, as developed by Gaston Bachelard and Georges Canguilhem, as a conception and practice which came out of the project, elaborated in France from the 1920s to the 1940s, of combining history of science and philosophy. I analyse in particular Canguilhem's epistemology in his theory and practice of history of science. What he called 'normative history' is the focus of my analysis. I evaluate the question of the nature and provenience of the norm employed in normative history, and I compare it with the norm as discussed by Canguilhem in Le normal et le pathologique. While I am critical of Canguilhem's treatment of history, I conclude that his philosophical suggestion to analyse the formation of scientific concepts 'from below' represents a useful model for history and philosophy of science, and that it can be very profitably extended to philosophical concepts.
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DOI | 10.1016/S1369-8486(03)00027-X |
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References found in this work BETA
The Sociology of Philosophies: A Global Theory of Intellectual Change.Randall Collins - 1998 - Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.
Psychologism: A Case Study in the Sociology of Philosophical Knowledge.Martin Kusch - 1995 - Routledge.
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Citations of this work BETA
What (Good) is Historical Epistemology? Editors' Introduction.Uljana Feest & Thomas Sturm - 2011 - Erkenntnis 75 (3):285-302.
On the Genealogy of Concepts and Experimental Practices: Rethinking Georges Canguilhem’s Historical Epistemology.Pierre-Olivier Méthot - 2012 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A (1):112-123.
Matteucci and du Bois-Reymond: A Bitter Rivalry.Gabriel Finkelstein - 2011 - Archives Italiennes de Biologie 149 (4):29-37.
Canguilhem’s Concepts.David Marcelo Peña-Guzmán - 2018 - Transversal: International Journal for the Historiography of Science 4:27.
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