Introduction: A Neglected Philosopher—Canguilhem Beyond Epistemology and the History of Science

In his 1989 book Michel Foucault’s Archaeology of Scientific Reason, Gary Gutting links Foucault to the so-called French school of historical epistemology. He proposes to read Foucault as a philosopher of science, aiming to transform the then dominant Anglophone reception of this thinker as a social critic. The two key figures Gutting mobilizes in his reading are Gaston Bachelard and Georges Canguilhem; whereas Bachelard was fundamentally “a philosopher of science who based his conclusions on historical studies, Canguilhem is primarily a historian of science, though one extremely sensitive to the philosophical presuppositions and implications of his work.”