Georges Canguilhem

Georges Canguilhem was a French philosopher and physician who taught at Strasbourg, served in the Resistance and later directed the Institute for the History of Science at the Sorbonne in Paris. In The Normal and the Pathological he argued that health and disease are not points on a merely quantitative scale but are shaped by the norms living beings set for themselves and by the history of medical concepts. His historical epistemology of the life sciences strongly influenced Michel Foucault and later philosophy of medicine.

Key ideas

• The pathological is not simply a quantitative deviation from the normal; it is a different way of living with its own norms.
• Health is the capacity of an organism to establish new norms in changing circumstances.
• What counts as normal and pathological has been shaped historically and must be studied through the history of concepts.
• The history of science is a history of concepts and their transformations rather than of discoveries alone.

Major works

• The Normal and the Pathological (Le normal et le pathologique; thesis 1943, expanded edition 1966)
• Knowledge of Life (La connaissance de la vie, 1952)
• Ideology and Rationality in the History of the Life Sciences (1977)

In the conversation

• Debate Health cannot be defined without values, and Boorse’s statistical theory shows it by trying Dima Nasser · 3 replies
• Discussion Ibn Sina begins the Canon by defining medicine. What does that definition assume about health? Omar Ragab · 5 replies
• Reading group Reading group: Canguilhem, The Normal and the Pathological Claire Dubois · 4 replies