Jean Cavaillès

Interpreters of Michel Foucault's 1966 Les mots et les choses have often conflated the terms 'episteme' and 'historical a priori'. This article suggests that the two terms are entirely separate: while 'episteme' refers to the configuration of thought in a given historical period, 'historical a priori' refers to the conditions of unity for a certain field of science within a given period. In his use of the term 'historical a priori', Foucault is thus much closer to Husserl than has hitherto been appreciated. Keeping the two terms separated also sheds new light on the archaeological method that Foucault uses, showing that there is a procedure to get from an archive of texts to the reconstruction of an episteme.

On se centre sur le contenu de la « thèse principale » de Cavaillès (Méthode axiomatique et formalisme) pour décrire la façon dont elle répond au problème du fondement des mathématiques. Ce problème n’a pris son importance « qu’avec la crise de la théorie des ensembles », débouchant au début du XXème siècle sur ce qu’on a pu appeler « la crise des fondements » : la concurrence des modèles de proposition de refondation (logiciste, formaliste et intuitionniste). L’objectif est de situer la position de Cavaillès (« formalisme modifié ») à l’endroit de ces différentes réponses et la philosophie mathématique qui s'en dégage.

This article discusses the influence of Koyré's epistemology on Lacan's conception of the real and more broadly on his critical examination of the relation between science and psychoanalysis. The discussion necessitates a systematic return to Koyré, whose visibility in contemporary philosophical and psychoanalytical debates is rather marginal despite his major contribution to the development of epistemology, philosophy and structural psychoanalysis in 20th century France and beyond. The article embeds Lacan's teaching in a broader intellectual movement of French philosophy of science, which already recognised the necessity of a materialist epistemology. Following this current, Lacan openly associated his take on structuralism with dialectical materialism. Or, this positioning of psychoanalysis can hardly be understood in its overall complexity without reexamining Koyré's philosophical and epistemological polemics and the influence of his historical examination of the foundations of modern science on mid-20th century structuralism. The latter, one could argue, repeats the modern astronomical revolution in the field of human objects (language, thought, society). Lacan's structural psychoanalysis was undoubtedly the most radicalised version of this repetition – but precisely this would not have been possible without Koyré's historical epistemology.

Interview faite par Pierre Boutang à Jean Wahl en 1971 où celui-ci, pour la première fois, raconte les circonstances de son arrestation par la Gestapo à Paris, en 1941, son passage à la Santé puis à Drancy et nomme ceux qui l'ont averti, aidé, soutenu ainsi que que le nom de celui qui l'a indiqué à la Gestapo.

L'édifice des mathématiques semble intemporel, pourtant il est toujours le résultat d'un travail de recherche, d'une expérience vécue. Comment concilier ces deux aspects ? Nous confrontons ici la philosophie des mathématiques de Jean Cavaillès à l'Essai de Bergson. Nous concluons que si les objets mathématiques se déploient dans le temps, il n'en va pas de leur latence, mais de leur essence temporelle : c'est en tant que projetés et animés dans la durée que les objets mathématiques peuvent s'agencer et former l'édifice mathématique, fruit de la liberté humaine.

If we awaited perfection, we would never move forward. It is everywhere like here: supposing the Greeks had waited for the complete demonstration of their axioms, for their reduction to identical, geometry would still to be done. Mathematics presupposes axiomatics, but not perfection; we can develop the consequences of the former, downstream [en aval], for example by inventing the differential calculus with a lot of pragmatism and little rigour, while simultaneously, going back upstream [à l'amont] of the axioms and definitions in order to logicize them. So is the method of Establishments: once this is agreed upon, this is beyond of dispute. Likewise, without awaiting the perfection of philosophy -in this regard "we are in a certain infancy of the world" [nous sommes dans une certaine enfance du Monde], we are at an antepythagorician stage -we have to work on its elements and to build a first alphabet of human thoughts, but we must also go to the other extremity of the positive and order the proliferation of written or spoken tongues: study Chinese, hieroglyphe, cuneiform, the "Indo-European" languages, demonstrate their harmony. Advancing one enterprise cannot not have effect on the process of the other. By multiplying "samples" set beyond dispute, by pluralising the results of this molecular and regional method, we can hope, bit by bit, to cover unknown territories. Hence achievement [l'achèvement] and perfection are in the end understood as goals, as horizon, not as prior conditions. 1 3 Leibniz, Serres argued, devised a double method of universality: the first one starts from an elemental consistency (the monad, the singular), on which he reads the universal law, while the second starts from the mathesis (the monadology, the system) or abstract generality, from which he proposes to derive the particular. In Leibniz's system, these universalities form a cycle, meaning that these two methods are fundamentally co-conditional and cannot be dissociated. 4 Marcel Hénaff, 'Of Stones, Angels and Humans' in Niran Abbas, Mapping Michel Serres (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2005), 183 5 These texts are: 'Ce que Thalès a vu au pied des pyramides', first published Hermès II, L'Interférence (1972) and translated into English as 'Mathematics and Philosophy: What Thalès saw... ' in Hermès: Literature, Science, Philosophy (1982), 84-97 ; and 'Origine de la géométrie' 3, 4 and 5 in Hermès V, Le passage du Nord-Ouest. Only 'Origine de la géométrie 5' has been translated into English as 'The

The philosophy of Louis Althusser is often contrasted with the ideas of Michel Foucault. At first sight, the disagreement seems to be about the concept of ideology: while Althusser seem to be huge advocate of the use of the concept, Foucault apparently dislikes and avoids the concept altogether. However, I argue in this article that this reading is only superficial and that it obscures the real debate between these two authors. Althusser, especially in his recently posthumously published Sur la reproduction (1995), appears to agree on many points with Foucault. The real dispute lies not in the concept of ideology, but in its connection with its counterpart ‘science’. Both Althusser and Foucault were in a way epistemologists, focusing on the question on how sciences develop and how scientific practice works. Focussing on their shared background in the French epistemology, with authors such as Gaston Bachelard and Jean Cavaillès, the real discussion appears to be about whether science can really be opposed to ideology or not. Focusing on these aspects of their works can shed new lights on their oeuvre as well as on the nature of scientific practice.

This paper is concerned with Cavaillès' account of "intuition" in mathematics. Cavaillès starts from Kant's theory of constructions in intuition and then relies on various remarks by Hilbert to apply it to modern mathematics. In this context, "intuition" includes the drawing of geometrical figures, the use of algebraic or logical signs and the generation of numbers as, for example, described by Brouwer. Cavaillès argues that mathematical practice can indeed be described as "constructions in intuition" but that these constructions are not imbedded in the space and in the time of our Sensibility, as Kant believed: They take place in other structures which are engendered in the history of mathematics. This leads Cavaillès to a critical discussion of both Hilbert's and Brouwer's foundational programs.

Cette étude essaie de réunir quelques éléments en vue d'une interprétation plus complète du programme épistémologique contenu de façon extrèmement elliptique dans l'ouvrage posthume de Jean Cavaillès, publié en 1947 par G. Canguilhem et C. Ehresmann sous le titre Sur la logique et la théorie de la science (désigné ci-après par "S"). Afin d'arriver, plus particulièrement, à une articulation plus développée du contenu des fameuses dernières phrases de ce texte, où la "nécessité génératrice" d'une dialectique conceptuelle est évoquée, il faudra rappeler quelques aspects connus ainsi que quelques aspects moins connus du cheminement philosophique de Cavaillès.

Os textos publicados por Georges Canguilhem durante as décadas de 1920-1930, que desenvolviam uma filosofia dos valores com certa inflexão política, receberam grande influência do neokantiano Alain (pseudônimo de Émile Chartier). O grupo dos intelectuais reunidos em torno de Alain militava em favor do pacifismo, visando evitar um novo conflito mundial. Contudo, a ascensão do fascismo provocou uma nova postura por parte do “jovem Canguilhem”, que publicou anonimamente os resultados de uma pesquisa empírica com o título “Le fascisme et les paysans”, levando sua filosofia axiológica de então a uma nova inflexão política, culminando numa ruptura com o pensamento de Alain e de seu grupo

Este artigo aborda as relações entre Foucault e a assim chamada filosofia do conceito, partindo da famosa clivagem estabelecida pelo próprio Foucault entre duas tradições do pensamento filosófico contemporâneo francês: filosofia do conceito versus filosofia do sujeito. Tal clivagem possui uma história, tendo sido proposta inicialmente por Jean Cavaillès em sua obra póstuma finalizada em 1942; adotada, em seguida, por Georges Canguilhem em sua resenha a Les mots et les choses (1966 para o livro de Foucault, 1967 para a resenha de Canguilhem); até ser, enfim, problematizada por Foucault em dois textos dedicados a Canguilhem, de 1978 e de 1984 respectivamente. Propomos que o modo de organizar os debates envolvendo a filosofia francesa contemporânea segundo essa clivagem atende a critérios não somente epistemológicos, mas sobretudo a implicações ético-políticas, em atenção à relação entre saber e poder tal como compreendida por Foucault. Isso é possível demonstrar por contraste a outras formas de organizar a mesma filosofia francesa contemporânea, como aquela proposta por Frédéric Worms com seu conceito de momentos, bem como pela apropriação que Alain Badiou lhe faz.

This paper discusses the relationship between Foucault and the philosophy of concept, starting from the famous cleavage established by Foucault himself between two traditions of contemporary French philosophical thought: philosophy of concept versus philosophy of subject. Such a cleavage has a history, having been first proposed by Jean Cavaillès in his posthumous work completed in 1942; adopted by Georges Canguilhem in his review of Les mots et les choses (1966 for Foucault's book, 1967 for Canguilhem's review); and finally problematized by Foucault in two texts dedicated to Canguilhem, in 1978 and 1984 respectively. We propose that the way of organizing the debates involving contemporary French philosophy according to this cleavage obeys not only epistemological criteria, but ethical-political implications, in view of the relationship between knowledge and power as understood by Foucault. This can also be demonstrated by contrast to other ways of organizing the same contemporary French philosophy, as that way proposed by Frederic Worms with his concept of moments, as well as by the appropriation that Alain Badiou makes to it.

This paper concerns the role of mathematical problems in the epistemology of Jean Cavaillès. Most occurrences of the term “problem” in his texts refer to mathematical problems, in the sense in which mathematicians themselves use the term: for an unsolved question which they hope to solve. Mathematical problems appear as breaking points in the succession of mathematical theories, both giving a continuity to the history of mathematics and illuminating the way in which the history of mathematics breaks up into successive theories with different kinds of operations and, in a sense, different kinds of a prioris. We briefly compare mathematical becoming to the succession of episteme in Foucault’s Les Mots et les choses. We then come back to the necessity that Cavaillès attributes to mathematical becoming, and which the position of mathematical problems illustrates, in order to discuss its various consequences in Cavaillès’ later works but also in Canguilhem’s discussion of Cavaillès’ role in the Resistance. Finally, we study other types of problems, in Cavaillès’ writings: philosophical problems and what we will call “questions” rather than “problems,” and which contrary to mathematical problems, as Cavaillès uses the term, cannot be solved but pervade the whole of the history of mathematics. We will put these “questions” in relation to Lautman’s Ideas.

In recent years, analytic philosophers have begun to recognize the value of the French school of historical epistemology (as embodied by figures such as Jean Cavaillès, Gaston Bachelard, Georges Canguilhem, and Michel Foucault) for contemporary debates in the history and philosophy of science. This tradition, which some characterize as a ‘French’ approach to the philosophy of science, however, remains largely un-read by mainstream philosophers of science. This article offers an interpretation of this tradition, highlighting what the author takes to be its two central features: (i) its claim that scientific discourse is the object of epistemology and (ii) its claim that scientific concepts are the building blocks of scientific discourse.

The philosopher of Mathematics Jean Cavaillès plays an important role in Claude Imbert's thought. His published work had a significant impact after the war. It is largely a reflection on debates on the foundation of mathematics and on two opposed models of axiomatics, foundationalist and constructionist. The philosophy he announced (cut short by his death during World War II) was to be a study of the generativity of conceptual structures, as opposed to a phenomenology of knowledge. He derived from his reflection on invention in mathematics a great scepticism on the ideas of the separateness and unity of consciousness and a criticism of the teleologies inherent in philosophies of consciousness. In that, his work, according to Claude Imbert, made possible the reflections on structures and symbolisms which were to dominate the French context in the following decades.

Q uando Derrida entra all'École normale supérieure si trova davanti un giovane docente, Foucault, che in quegli anni tiene corsi su Merleau-Ponty e sulle Ideen: «questo -testimonia Derrida -deve aver avuto un ruolo nella forma presa dal mio interesse per la fenomenologia».

This article investigates the historical and philosophical background of the French tradition of historical epistemology. As a sort of 'historical epistemology of historical epistemology,' it traces some of the forces, incidents, and events that made possible (and perhaps even necessary) the emergence of a new way of doing epistemology in the first half of the twentieth century in France. Three developments that occupy a position of privilege in this narrative are: (i) the collapse of German idealism, (ii) the birth of French positivism, and (iii) what the author calls 'the crisis in the theory of science' that swept over Europe in the early 1900s. These developments suggest that the emergence and development of historical epistemology was the effect of changes internal to the history of Western philosophy (from Kant to Comte) as much as a function of changes external to this history (including changes in the material fabric of society).

The philosophy of Louis Althusser is often contrasted with the ideas of Michel Foucault. At first sight, the disagreement seems to be about the concept of ideology: while Althusser seems to be a huge advocate of the use of the concept, Foucault apparently dislikes and avoids the concept altogether. However, I argue in this article that this reading is only superficial and that it obscures the real debate between these two authors. Althusser, especially in his recently posthumously published Sur la reproduction (1995), appears to agree on many points with Foucault. The real dispute lies not in the concept of ideology, but in its connection with its counterpart, namely ‘science’. Both Althusser and Foucault were in a way epistemologists, focusing on the question of how sciences develop and how scientific practice works. Focusing on their shared background in the French epistemology, with authors such as Gaston Bachelard and Jean Cavaillès, the real discussion appears to be about wheth...

La filosofia del gesto di Giovanni Maddalena si pone come obiettivo quello di indagare la relazione tra pensiero e comunicazione, proponendo un nuovo paradigma di ragionamento fondato sulla nozione sintetica di gesto. La sinteticità del gesto risiede nell’idea che conosciamo mentre facciamo e mentre comunichiamo. In estrema sintesi, potremmo dire che l’azione viene qui concepita come ragionamento complesso e creativo.

chez Gaston Bachelard --( ) Le rapport entre la réception de Spinoza et la pensée des mathématiques est une question qui concerne de nombreux philosophes liés à l'épistémologie historique. Pour introduire le rôle joué par la pensée bachelardienne dans ce cadre, nous nous proposons de retracer un parcours des liations intellectuelles qui, à partir de Léon Brunschvicg, en passant par ses élèves Jean Cavaillès et Gaston Bachelard, arrive jusqu'à Jean-Toussaint Desanti et, parmi nos contemporains, Alain Badiou. Il a été souligné à ce propos qu'à partir du volume des Étapes de la philosophie mathématique de Brunschvicg, on peut mettre au jour une orientation de type « surrationaliste » (expression bachelardienne), qui sousentendrait une certaine « puissance créatrice des mathématiques 1 » à l'intérieur de la philosophie française de la seconde moitié du e siècle.

Le commentaire de Cavaillès par Hourya Benis Sinaceur,  en révélant comment Cavaillès prolonge une conception de la nécessité interne qui passe par Spinoza, Hegel et aussi Dedekind, ouvre en fait une perspective plus vaste sur les modalités en histoire, avec une articulation naturelle sur la mathématisation de la logique modale dont Goldblatt a fait le récit.

The essay tries to find the general theoretical coordinates of a genealogy of thinkers that, from J. Cavaillès to M. Foucault, through the work of G. Canguilhem, has gone across the recent history of French philosophy. The paper tries to develop the theoretical framework of this thought tradition. Through this operation, some essential elements of a certain philosophical “style” emerge regaining an idea of the aims of philosophy from the Enlightenment, in opposition to the tradition of a philosophy of the subject and the conscience.

Il saggio tenta di ricostruire le linee teoriche generali di una genealogia di pensatori che, da Jean Cavaillès fino a Michel Foucault, passando per l’opera di George Canguilhem, attraversa la storia recente della filosofia francese. L’articolo tenta di sviluppare la cornice teorica di fondo di questa tradizione di pensiero. Nel fare questo emergono alcuni tratti essenziali di un certo “stile” filosofico che, contrapponendosi alla tradizione della filosofia del soggetto e della coscienza, riprende un’idea illuminista dei compiti della filosofia.

Récit romancé à partir de l'interview faite à Jean Wahl par Pierre Boutang. Version en italien qui sera bientot suivie de la version française.
Reconstitution des circonstances  d'une conversation Aux  Deux Magots, en juillet 1941, la veille de la convocation du philosophe à la Gestapo. Un certain mystère l'entoure. Il n'y a pas là d'affirmation définitive, mais un halo de doutes.

Dans cette intervention, je voudrais essayer de croiser l’analyse de Foucault sur la gouvernementalité libérale et néolibérale avec une archive qu’à ma connaissance, il n’a jamais prise en compte, à savoir celle constituée par l’histoire de la cybernétique et le plexus des figures, extrêmement hétérogène, qui lui est liée.
Mon hypothèse – qui a été le point de départ de mon projet de doctorat – est, en fait, que dans la série de concepts développés dans ce que j’appelle le champ cybernétique doivent être tracées les fondements épistémologiques de la gouvernementalité néolibérale. L’exportation de ces concepts vers les sciences économiques et sociales a en effet contribué à la définition d’un nouveau paradigme d'(auto-)régulation (homéostatique) de la société qui fonctionne à partir de l’échange d’informations et lui permet une auto/ré-organisation continue de son intérieur grâce à un mécanisme (téléologique) de rétroaction (feedback). Cela permet, je crois, de comprendre de manière productive où réside la spécificité épistémico-politique du néolibéralisme.
À partir des analyses que Foucault mène, notamment au sein de Sécurité, Territoire, Population (1977-78) et Naissance de la biopolitique (1978-79), sur la crise du libéralisme et l’apparition de la gouvernementalité néolibérale, je vais essayer de montrer comment la diffusion des concepts nés dans le cadre de la réflexion propre du mouvement cybernétique a joué un rôle clé dans cette transition. Pour ce faire, je me concentrerai en particulier sur les travaux de Norbert Wiener, en essayant de les contextualiser non seulement sur le plan épistémologique, mais aussi sur celui du contexte historico-politique. Ensuite, j’examinerai la transition vers ce que l’on appelle habituellement deuxième mouvement cybernétique (en me concentrant, en particulier, sur la figure de Heinz von Foerster), dont les points de divergence avec ce qu’on appelle la première cybernétique (que vous pouvez limiter, essentiellement, aux travaux de Wiener) ont permis, à mon avis, la diffusion de la conceptualité cybernétique au sein des sciences sociales, d’une côté, et, plus spécifiquement, la définition progressive du paradigme épistémologique néolibéral et de ses dispositifs biopolitiques et bioéconomiques, de l’autre.