And Ulysses, wrapped up and sleeping under the leaves, like a shepherdâs fire, is Ulysses nonetheless. We must extend a credit of honor and hospitality to every shape of man; and the idea that any stranger may be a god in disguise, is among those that the future will not diminish.âAlain, The Gods1
Who was Georges Canguilhem? In 1955, he was appointed to the position that has largely determined his reputation ever since, replacing Gaston Bachelard as Professor of History and Philosophy of the Sciences at the Sorbonne and director of the Institute for the History of Sciences and Techniques.2 Yet this is also when he began to publicly engage the war France was waging against Algerian independence, leading to a series of essays about the war and the collapse of the Fourth French Republic under threat of a military coup. In these, we find a philosopher concerned with concrete political problems drawing brilliantly on his earlier studies in the history of science and medical practice. The problems concerned not only the question of Algerian independence, but also the military uses and significance of purportedly scientific knowledge in the struggle to protect French Algeria and France itself. Indeed, they would eventually open onto the nuclear arms race and its implications for human existence and ethics. These essays, therefore, written and published between 1958 and 1960, serve as an excellent introduction to Canguilhem and his work, for in them coalesce the themes and issues that might seem to animate two different persons, the social-political philosopher and militant pacifist of the 1930s and the patient historian of the life sciences who taught at the Sorbonne after 1955. As these writings show, Canguilhemâs life found room for both.
Canguilhem first publicly commented on the war by contributing his signature to a clear, concise, and public call for peace in Algeria.3 Rather than call for rebellion, as another declaration had done, he supported a document highlighting the untenable moral choices with which the state was confronting the youth, whether to desert their military duties or participate in actions that they judged immoral, whether to abandon their nation or declare their faith in the use of military violence to solve human problems. Many signed it, though only the names of a few appear in print. Canguilhemâs is found alongside other professors from the Sorbonne and the CollĂšge de France, a few specializing in Islam and North Africa, two Church leaders, and writers, including GuĂ©henno, Leiris, Bataille, Breton, and Sartre, Canguilhemâs former classmate. Why was Canguilhemâs name included here? He was a highly regarded intellectual in his own right, after all he had just been appointed to replace Gaston Bachelard at the Sorbonne. But his reputation as a resistant under the German Occupation and his continued service to France after the warâfirst as the stateâs Inspector General of philosophy teaching, then as contributor to UNESCOâs international inquiry into the significance of philosophy teaching and editor of the publication to which this ledâmade him a national figure.4
Published in the November 7, 1955 issue of LâExpress, a weekly magazine that would oppose the Algerian war, the declaration demanded: âan end to repression; immediate negotiations; ending the state of emergency in Algeria; liberation of the conscripts; no racial discrimination, whether overseas or in the metropole.â Its signatories, moreover, promised to âsolemnly engage to act in all ways that they judge to be good by conscience, and in all domains they can reach, in order to put an end to a war in North Africa which is a menace to the Republic and simultaneously a crime against humankindâ (Canguilhem et al. 1955, 679). While this might seem an initiative fit for Sartre, exemplar of the engaged intellectual, it also points directly to Ămile Chartier (1868â1951). An ardent pacifist and famous essayist after the Great War, Chartier taught philosophy to the young Canguilhem and many others at the LycĂ©e Henri IV in Paris, including Sartre, Merleau-Ponty, and Weil, all of whose published ideas respond in one way or another to his classes and the short discussions [propos], each only a few pages long, he had published using the pseudonym Alain. Canguilhem, however, became one of Chartierâs closest associates in the 1930s, eventually serving as chief editor of Alainâs journal, Libres Propos, before breaking with him over the question of pacifism in the face of fascismâs ascendance.5 But even after this, and after the Occupation, Canguilhem remained close to Chartier and, I will show, certain aspects of his philosophy of individual reflection, judgment, pacifism, and resistance.6 The declaration points to Alain and Canguilhem in another way too. As it makes clear, this was the first time since the formation of the Vigilance Committee of Anti-fascist Intellectuals (CVIA), which had combatted its spread in France during the 1930s, that such a large number of French intellectuals gathered on behalf of a political cause (Canguilhem et al. 1955, 679). As I discuss in Chapter Two, Alain was one of its founding leaders and Canguilhem himself had contributed importantly, albeit anonymously, to its work. Their eventual rupture in the 1930s notwithstanding, Alainâs continuing importance for Canguilhem in the late 1950s needs considering because Canguilhem himself publicly returns to Alainâs political philosophy at this time.
A Political Education During the Downfall of the Republic
After signing the Express declaration, Canguilhem seems to have remained more or less silent, in print anyway, about the conflict in Algeria until 1958.7 Then, over the course of two years, he published a number of articles directly related to the Algerian war and its profound consequences in La DĂ©pĂȘche du Midi. In June of 1958, months before the first of these appeared, however, he edited and republished a number of Alainâs political writings, selected from Propos published between 1909 and 1930, under the title âAlain, The Education of Citizen and Voter,â abbreviated hereafter as Alain (Canguilhem 1958a). Chartier had sought throughout his writing to theorize and promote the means to support Republican France through its troubles, no small task given the history. Little wonder, then, that Canguilhem might urge a renewal of Alainâs thought as Republican France seemed on the verge of definitive collapse. As we will see, Canguilhemâs writings about France and the Algerian war follow directly from his condensed reedition of Alainâs political writings.
Canguilhemâs edition opens with an epigraph to the effect that a person is not a republican because the Republic exists, that the Republic is never a state of fact.8 Instead, quoting Alain:
[t]he true Republic is a parti pris and a rule posited to which one will bend experience. And if the Republic is weak, unjust, and corrupted in fact, this is the moment to hold tight for the Idea; otherwise one is not a thinking man, but a collection of tatters exposed to every breeze. (Canguilhem 1958a, 823)
By including this commentâs date, April 1, 1914, Canguilhem draws attention to the most critical period in Chartierâs life, both for himself and his later followers, since his participation in the Great War, despite his pacifism, would be centrally important to his thought, writing, and future impact on students. Moreover, this epigraph also keys the reader into the importance of questioning what it means to be a proponent of a Republic, about the meaning of the Republic itself in highly unsettled and uncertain times. With this subtle reference to the historical moment in which Alain urged the French to remain true to the Idea of the Republic, Canguilhem nudges his reader to wonder about how ideas and history relate to each other in their own moment. And he declares that, âwe must take in this lesson from Alain. Because it is time, today, to hold good for the Idea of the Republic.â The âconditions of factâ stipulated by Alainâs text are at present fulfilled, that is, the current Republic is weak, unjust, and corrupt (Canguilhem 1958a, 824). By its publication, the putsch of May 13, instigated by the French Army of Africa in order to continue the war against Algerian independence, had happened. And June, the month of its publication, began with de Gaulleâs empowerment as President with the authority to design a new constitution favoring stronger executive power, effectively ending the 4th Republic. This, combined with the brevity of the selections, a mere twenty-seven pages in Canguilhemâs Oeuvres complĂštes, suggests that the edition was prepared quickly and in response to the events of the putsch. It was a prĂ©cis meant to excite resistance to a new threat to republican government. If the military had installed a general as President of the Republic by threatening force, what would prevent force from becoming the rule?
Given this situation and the continuing atrocities of the Algerian war, we can understand why he decides, âto presentâŠsome principles of his political thought, understood as a general analytic of civic obligations in democracyâ (Canguilhem 1958a, 824). It is not a matter of applying Alainâs principles to the present moment, rather it is up to readers to âdiscernâ the extent to which these principles, forged in relation to the War of 1914, are âcapable of âfunctional variationâ in the historical context of a Fourth Republic that the war of 1939 separates from the Thirdâ (Canguilhem 1958a, 824). Stated thus, Canguilhem highlights the repetition of war and its disastrous impact on the Republic: one had recently been overthrown by the German occupation, now another was collapsing because of its own war against Algerian independence. And he lets it be known that he is resisting, holding tight for the Republic. As a philosopher, Canguilhem trusts this analytic presentation of civic obligations will provide opportunities for citizens to reflect on ways to do the same, while insisting that neither can Alainâs principles simply be applied to solve present problems, nor can these problems serve to provoke their simple âcritical revisionâ (Canguilhem 1958a, 824). They have enduring value, even if they require functional variation in the moment. The exercise of rereading Alainâs political thought will thus benefit âany reader, citizen or voter, who cares to oppose the resistance of a few clear ideas to fluctuating opinions in the disarray of mindsâ (Canguilhem 1958a, 824).
But before turning to Canguilhemâs edition, consider some other reasons why it would have been necessary to republish Alainâs political thought only seven years after his death. First, Alainâs propos, written over many years and in response to current events, had not systematically presented the principles of his thought. Canguilhemâs edition, which presents ten theses and deploys select comments to elucidate them, addresses and corrects this concern. But the other reason concerns Alainâs pacifism regarding the Nazi threat and the German invasion and occupation of France. While Chartier himself never accepted the occupying forces, some of Alainâs followers deployed the integral pacifism that they had learned from his writings as a reason to accept the German occupation of France.9 Indeed, he had even signed, unwittingly, a document advocating unconditional peace with the German invaders (Sartre 1984, 22). In short, Alainâs name and writings were tainted by the support collaborators had found in them. Highly regarded as an intellectual and popular for his philosophical journalism before the war, Alainâs name became associated with people who now provoked visceral disgust and hatred in France. And despite the efforts of advocates like Canguilhem or Jean Hyppolite, his writings have been largely forgotten by the history of philosophy.10 Criticism by former students, like Sartre, who preferred phenomenology to Alainâs school of reflexive judgment, helped make this possible, especially with his suggestion that Alain stands for the abdication of thought (Granel 1962).11 That Sartreâs existentialism owes much to his teach...