Epistemology and History. From Bachelard and Canguilhem to

MAX-PLANCK-INSTITUT FÜR WISSENSCHAFTSGESCHICHTE
Max Planck Institute for the History of Science
2012
PREPRINT 434
Conference
Epistemology and History
From Bachelard and Canguilhem
to Today’s History of Science

TABLE OF CONTENTS
PROSPECTUSES
Epistemology and History 7
Épistémologie et histoire 13
Epistemologie und Geschichte 19
Program 25
INTRODUCTIONS
Eröffnung/Ouverture
Henning Schmidgen 27
Historical Epistemology, Old and New
Jean-François Braunstein 33
Sur la réception de l’«épistémologie française» en Allemagne
Peter Schöttler 41
Rheinberger’s Take on Historical Epistemology
Henning Schmidgen 47
CONTRIBUTIONS
L’épistémologie historique dans l’itinéraire intellectuel de Georges Canguilhem
Camille Limoges 53
La dissection humaine. De l’histoire des commencements à celle des origines
François Delaporte 67
Intervals, Possibilities and Encounters. The Trigger of a Ruptured History
in Bachelard
Monika Wulz 77

The Rupture and the Screw. The Structure of History According to Georges
Canguilhem and Helmuth Plessner
Thomas Ebke 91
Kurt Goldstein’s Conception of Individuality
Stefanos Geroulanos & Todd Meyers 101
Georges Canguilhem. Épistémologie historique et/ou histoire philosophique?
Claude Debru 111
On the Genealogy of Concepts and Experimental Practices. Rethinking Georges
Canguilhem’s Historical Epistemology
Pierre-Olivier Méthot 117
Le concept d’objectivité chez Canguilhem
Françoise Balibar 145
“Scientific Philosophies” in the Early 1930s and Gaston Bachelard
on “Induction”
Sandra Pravica 159
Canguilhem and Blumenberg. Working on the Evolution of Problems
from Both Sides of the Rhine
Cornelius Borck 171
Archéologie des concepts et philosophie de la nature
Andrea Cavazzini 181
Histoire(s) de la vie de Canguilhem à Foucault
Maria Muhle 187
The Role of Scientific Ideology in Canguilhem’s Historiography
Cristina Chimisso 197
Ist eine historische Epistemologie der ‚Sozialwissenschaft‘ möglich?
Frieder Otto Wolf 205
Life in Shakespeare’s Sonnets
Anselm Haverkamp 213
ABSTRACTS OF CONTRIBUTIONS 221
LIST OF AUTHORS AND PARTICIPANTS 229

7
EPISTEMOLOGY AND HISTORY
From Bachelard and Canguilhem to Today’s History of Science
Over the past few years, “historical epistemology” has had quite a successful
international career. Starting with a week-long conference organized by Ian Hacking in
Toronto in 1993, historical epistemology was and continues to be used as a label for a
wide variety of projects and programs: from Hacking’s own discussion of styles of
scientific reasoning to Lorraine Daston’s historicization of epistemological categories
and values, Arnold Davidson’s investigations into the conceptual formation of new
kinds of knowledge and experience and the attempt undertaken by Peter Damerow et al.
to broaden the scope of Jean Piaget’s “genetic epistemology” by historical means.
Against this background, a series of recent conferences has been devoted to historical
epistemology in order to explore and discuss in more detail the investigations and
endeavors currently tied to that name. In this context, the key question has tended to be
“What is historical epistemology?” However, the corresponding answers have turned
out to be diverse. Either they remained general and referred to an interdisciplinary as
well as international project bridging the gap between history of science and philosophy
of science while combining analytic with continental traditions, or responses were very
concrete, referring to a “discipline” that aimed at introducing historical contingency into
seemingly fixed worlds. Other answers were restricted to programatic statements,
pointing to a general reference frame for all theoretically oriented studies in the history
of science.
Our conference has a different aim. Instead of addressing the “what?,” it will ask
“how?” As a consequence, it will also ask “who?,” “when?,” “where?,” and “where to?”
In other words, this meeting is meant to intervene into the ongoing debate by
dramatizing, as it were, the projects associated with the label “historical epistemology.”
Its main goal is to historicize and contextualize historical epistemology and, by the
same token, to create what we consider an important prerequisite for concrete and
critical updates.
The central reference point in this connection is the interesting synthesis of history
and epistemology that emerged in the French context during the 1930s and 1940s.
Generally speaking this synthesis resulted from a polemic demarcation of philosophy
with respect to its established versions and the programmatic integration of the natural
sciences. As representatives for this move we refer to the writings of Gaston Bachelard,
the works of Georges Canguilhem, and, at a later point, studies by Louis Althusser,
Michel Foucault and others. In fact, it is precisely in this context that the expression
“historical epistemology” was initially coined and widely used.