Foucault, in an introduction to Canguillhem’s work “The Normal and the Pathological” , makes a distinction between two traditions of philosophy in France. The distinction between these traditions represent two different “responses” to the same dilemma re-inaugurated by Husserl’s “Cartesian Meditations”.

The dilemma is the character of the relation between subject and object. The first tradition is very well known and “opts” for the side of the subject. It is the tradition of the cogito, experience, and conciousness. This tradition is populated by such figures as Bergson, Merleau-Ponty, and Sartre. The second tradition is a neglected line of philosophy, especially in the Anglophone world. It is a tradition that focuses on science , a tradition of knowledge, rationality, and concept. It is represented by such academic philosophers and historians of science as Koyre, Bachelard, Cavailles, and Canguillhem.

I agree with Foucault that to understand Althusser and Foucualt himself requires an understanding of this second tradition. I want to try to analyze the positions and influences of this diverse group of philosophers and scientists on Althusser and Foucault. I also want to analyze the similitude and influence of this tradition on the Anglophone world. The most obvious example of such an influence is Kuhn’s debt to Alexander Koyre. Yet, even  in reading Canguillhem I noticed a similarity of thought with Kuhn’s on the precise point for which Kuhn is best remembered i.e. the development of science.

For Canguillhem, science is not a continuous and cumulative process governed by one set of logical or empirical principles. Rather it is a process of change in which a epoch is distinguished from another in virtue of a difference between “normative regimes”.        The philosopher and historian of science studies the object of science by describing and explaining the “epistemic norms” guiding an epoch.  Most especially,  the historian must attend to the transformation of epistemic norms which constitute a transition between epochs.  The philosopher and historian reconstructs the development of science not as an increase of truth, but as a series of errors and reconstitutions, a series of scientific revolutions.

For Kuhn, the philosopher and historian of science must start from the fact that there are revolutions, and that the evidence and scientific method of scientists at any age underdetermines their conclusions. As there is no deductive-relation between evidence and conclusion (theory) the question then emerges: “at a given time in science, in a phase of “normal science”, what explains the adoption of a problem, its solutions, its theory and concepts, and what explains the revolution of “normal science” ? Kuhns response is to state that the best explanation is that the scientific process is not governed solely by deductive rules, but by other other kinds of rules. The principal non-deductive scientific rule is that scientist unconsciously develop norms which guide the picking out a type of problem, with its characteristic sort of solution, and make a problem and its solution an exemplar for other problems, so that the various problems and solutions are tied and extended on the basis of “similarity”- relations to the paradigm example. The different epochs of normal science are distinguished not solely as different deductive theories, but by different “exemplar” rules governing the practice of science. When those change, revolution ensues. Hence, different epochs of science cannot be compared , and distinguished on a continuum of the “truth/false”, but are incommensurable because the theory of an age treats of different kinds of problems and solutions.