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Becoming Rationalist: Biological Philosophy, History of the Reflex Concept, and the Uses of Water

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Georges Canguilhem and the Problem of Error

Abstract

This chapter puts Canguilhem into discussion with Bachelard and Foucault through the former’s poetics of water and the latter’s discussion of water’s use in psychiatry. I read Canguilhem’s history of the reflex concept as a critical extension of Bachelard’s efforts at “becoming rationalist” and culmination of his own biological philosophy. Canguilhem, I argue, treats the concept as an historical a priori in seeking to extend a convergence between the sciences and workers’ resistance to psychological techniques of control. And this fits with his critique of psychology and defense of Pinel’s therapies for madness. On this basis, I argue that Foucault’s History of Madness resists Bachelard and Canguilhem by reflexively criticizing their writings to show the historical contingency of categories of work, alienation, and Man.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Alain (1904, 17–18).

  2. 2.

    Selections have been translated in Canguilhem (1994). All translations here are my own and references are to the French.

  3. 3.

    On his UNESCO work, see Talcott (2017a).

  4. 4.

    Foucault would update the book and change the title of subsequent editions to L’histoire de la folie. My references are to Foucault ([1961] 2006), the English translation of these later editions.

  5. 5.

    See Lecourt (1975), which introduces these phrases to distinguish Bachelard and Canguilhem.

  6. 6.

    For a later text devoted to it, see “Le concept de réflexe au XIXe siècle” in Canguilhem (1968, 295–304).

  7. 7.

    This distinction is probably best known in English through Foucault (1989). It is not, however, Foucault’s invention. Canguilhem had earlier referred to Jean Cavaillès, who he quotes to formulate the distinction, as an important player in the elaboration of such a philosophy (Canguilhem 1947a, 268).

  8. 8.

    This is not a declaration of war, as he recalls the respect due Brunschvicg and Cavaillès. Canguilhem, with Charles Ehresmann, edited his friend Cavaillès’ last work, written in prison before the author’s execution by the Nazis, after the war (Canguilhem and Ehresmann 1947).

  9. 9.

    Whereas Alain’s account is shaped by a more or less static view of their contributions, Bachelard focuses on the dynamism of the senses.

  10. 10.

    Canguilhem only begins to write about Bachelard in earnest after taking over his chair in 1955. The details of these later writings will have to be examined at another time.

  11. 11.

    It is worth noting that his most explicit defense of vitalism does not argue for its truth; see “Aspects of Vitalism” (Canguilhem [1952] 2008).

  12. 12.

    See Sherrington (1906), which sets forth the vertebrate nervous system as the means by which cells are coordinated to form a living, individual animal.

  13. 13.

    He recognizes that contemporary philosophers are cognizant of this change, noting Maurice Merleau-Ponty, in particular.

  14. 14.

    Willis is remembered today primarily for his work on brain anatomy.

  15. 15.

    Canguilhem summarizes this confused progression as follows: “We saw Descartes not comprehend Harvey on a capital point of the physiology of circulation, Haller misrecognizes the innovative ingenuity of Astruc, Du Bois Reymond get irritated by the very name of Prochaska. We saw Legallois forbid himself the systemization of his own experiences because he lacked the adequate notion that had already been formulated in his time. We saw George, Jeitteles, Pflüger reproach Marshall Hall for having spent 24,000 hours of work to go through, according to them, doors that were already open. Inversely, as for observations and experiments, Prochaska knew hardly more than Willis, from whom he was separated by a century, and much less than Hall, who was 30 years old when Prochaska died” (Canguilhem [1955] 1977, 172).

  16. 16.

    Given his long interest in technique, it could be informative to compare Canguilhem’s approach here and earlier to that of his student, Gilbert Simondon. See Simondon ([1958] 1989).

  17. 17.

    He draws here on the work of Georges Friedmann (Canguilhem 1947b).

  18. 18.

    Canguilhem, as Xavier Roth has shown, was educated in the reflexive school of philosophy (Roth 2013). It might be fruitful to consider his investigations of the reflex concept in physiology as a continuing critical elaboration of this philosophy. Alain, after all, had encountered the importance of physiological reflexes, even if he insisted that only mind could be reflexive and critical. See Chapter One above.

  19. 19.

    Canguilhem’s relation to Hegelian dialectics deserves a study of its own. See, to start, his “Hegel en France” (Canguilhem 1948–1949).

  20. 20.

    The entire course merits closer examination. Here I am only able to comment on the sections relevant to present purposes. See Talcott (2014) for a more detailed sketch of the beginning of this course.

  21. 21.

    The first lecture in Canguilhem’s course dossier is devoted to Bachelard and seems to have been published as Canguilhem ([1957] 1991); my paragraph here glosses the second lecture.

  22. 22.

    I discuss other aspects of this course in Chapter Eight.

  23. 23.

    See also Canguilhem (1958), discussed in Chapter One.

  24. 24.

    Frantz Fanon makes this point in a remark on Canguilhem’s account of the normal. While directing his readers to the Essay for this account, he notes its focuses on “the biological problem” in contrast to his concern: the psychopathology of black racial experience amongst the colonized. Fanon writes: “We add only that, in the mental domain, the abnormal person is the one who demands, calls out, implores” (Fanon 1952, 116). If in somatic illness it is normal to seek help, in mental illness giving voice to one’s problems is part of the pathology. It could be fruitful to compare the different contexts and claims made by each further. See also Bernasconi (2015).

  25. 25.

    These were subject to confirmation using statistical methods, notes Canguilhem, which in turn testified to the success of Pinel’s therapeutic techniques. Here we see another example of how he thought quantification and measurement could be useful in medicine.

  26. 26.

    In his first book, Mental Illness and Personality (1954b), Foucault also seeks a social cure for the problem of mental illness in Marxist revolution, converging with Canguilhem’s approach here.

  27. 27.

    Note here his 1981 discussions of water’s use in curing madness (Foucault 2014, 11–14).

  28. 28.

    Foucault understands the Classical Age to stretch from the late sixteenth to the early nineteenth centuries. The phrase, often used in French periodizations of literature, reminds that Madness was not only the history of a scientific object.

  29. 29.

    See the back cover of Foucault 2006 for Bachelard. Canguilhem most clearly expresses this when writing about another work in Canguilhem (1967).

  30. 30.

    Foucault had already praised Bachelard’s poetics, while suggesting the limitations in its treatment of the image (Foucault 1954a).

  31. 31.

    Water, he claims, has been replaced by air, the spoken breath exchanged in the psychoanalytic encounter between doctor and patient (Foucault 1963). See Talcott (2017b) for my reading of Bachelard’s poetics of air in its historical and political context.

  32. 32.

    “L’eau et la folie” includes more of this passage, where Pinel also uses the word bain, or bath, to refer to this same practice (Foucault 1963, 298).

  33. 33.

    On work and the beginning of alienation in confinement, see Foucault ([1961] 2006), 69–72, 80.

  34. 34.

    Foucault also notes Pinel’s account of how cold showers could be used for jokes, an interesting possibility that he leaves unexplored (Foucault [1961] 2006, 501). See also the dialogue between Leuret and a patient in Foucault (1963).

  35. 35.

    See Foucault (2008).

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  1. Department of Humanities, University of the Sciences, Philadelphia, PA, USA

    Samuel Talcott

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Talcott, S. (2019). Becoming Rationalist: Biological Philosophy, History of the Reflex Concept, and the Uses of Water. In: Georges Canguilhem and the Problem of Error. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-00779-9_6

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