Knowledge of Life

This is an English translation of La Connaisance de la vie (1952), a work on the philosophy of biology produced by French philosopher Georges Canguilhem (1904- 1995). The eight collected essays are guided by Canguilhem's insistence that there can be no sharp division drawn between knowledge and life, as knowledge cannot escape the question of its meaning. Instead, knowledge must be seen as a form of life that, as a human practice, "is a way of transforming the world, of finding a new balance with the milieu, of creating new form of life." Within the context of this understanding, Canguilhem explores the legacies of vitalism, particularly its affirmation of the need to keep the question of the relation between life and science, particularly life sciences, open, as they are co-original. He also addresses issues of method and history, including the idea of biological knowledge as "continued creative activity" and the tensions and affinities between experience and experiment. Annotation c2009 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Georges Canguilhem (1904-1995) remains one of France's most influential philosophers of science. Stefanos Geroulanos is Assistant Professor of Modern European Intellectual History at New York University. He is the author of An Atheism That Is Not Humanist Emerges in French Thought and the co-translator of Georges Canguilhem's Knowledge of Life (Fordham).

DANIELA GINSBURG is a Ph.D. candidate at The Johns Hopkins University Humanities Center.

Paola Marrati is Professor of Humanities and Philosophy at The Johns Hopkins University, where she directs the Program for the Study of Women, Gender, and Sexuality. She is the author of Genesis and Trace: Derrida Reading Husserl and Heidegger and Gilles Deleuze: cinma et philosophie.

Todd Meyers is Assistant Professor of Medical Anthropology at Wayne State University and the co-editor of Georges Canguilhem's Knowledge of Life (Fordham).