Georges Canguilhem was a French philosopher and historian of science whose work reshaped how we think about life, health, and the very idea of “normality.” Trained as both a philosopher and a physician, Canguilhem bridged the gap between abstract theory and concrete biology, arguing that living beings are not passive machines but active, self-organizing systems that define their own norms. His influential book The Normal and the Pathological challenged the medical tendency to treat health and disease as simple opposites, suggesting instead that pathology represents a different, but equally vital, way of life adapting to its conditions.

Canguilhem’s thought deeply influenced later thinkers like Michel Foucault, Louis Althusser, and Gilles Deleuze, who drew on his ideas about knowledge, power, and the living body. He saw science not as a march toward truth but as a creative, often discontinuous process shaped by errors and conceptual revolutions. Through his teaching and writings, he turned biology into a philosophical frontier, exploring how organisms, humans included, invent their own meanings and standards of survival. Today, his work remains a touchstone for discussions about medicine, ethics, and what it means to live well in a world constantly redefining what is “normal.”

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