Canguilhem with Goldstein: From normativity of life to the normativity of knowledge

In his medical thesis on the normal and the pathological (1943), Georges Canguilhem makes extensive use of Kurt Goldstein's ideas in order to define normality by the capacity of the organism to create new norms of life in relation to its milieu. Nevertheless, Canguilhem affirms that "Goldstein's ideas are an encouragement and not an inspiration". Canguilhem's personal archives allow us to consider the relationship between Canguilhem's and Goldstein's ideas as a convergence rather than as the influence of the later on the former. What is more, Canguilhem's use of Goldstein enables us to better understand his own ideas. In the first part of this paper, I analyze Goldstein's holistic conception of the organism in its relation to both gestalt-theory and Kant and I emphasize the process of actualization of the essence of the organism in its relation to its milieu. I also account for Canguilhem's use of certain concepts and ideas by Goldstein in order to develop his own concept of normativity as intrinsic to life. In the second part, I aim to provide an explanation of Canguilhem's formulation of the problem of the relation between knowledge and the normativity of life using his references to the German neurologist as a benchmarks.