Vital Knowledge of Life: A Systematic Comparison of Helmuth Plessner and Georges Canguilhem

The dissertation systematically compares the historical epistemology of Georges Canguilhem (1904-1995) with the philosophical anthropology of Helmuth Plessner (1892-1985). In so doing, the project creates a relationship between two poles that have never been related before: These two authors did not even know each other’s names. And while the tradition pushed forward by Canguilhem under the name of a histoire des sciences continues to represent a uniquely French direction of thought, the current of a philosophical anthropology that was decisively shaped by Helmuth Plessner since the 1920s still reputed to be a development whose significance is restricted to the history of German thought in the 20th century.

Against that background, Ebke’s project evolves the following thesis: Georges Canguilhem and Helmuth Plessner brought about, each in his own way, a structure that could be characterized as a vital knowledge of life. With diverse means and on the basis of very different intentions Plessner and Canguilhem complete three steps: First of all, they disclose the epistemic originality of life as opposed to what can be conceptualized as nature. Secondly, they elaborate a knowledge of life (a fact that allows them to differ from vitalisms of classical provenance: In both cases this refers to a specific type of rationality that is able to seize life as life. This rationality does not merge into the one practiced by the operative life sciences themselves, but acts as a corrective with regard to them. Thirdly and finally, Plessner and Canguilhem converge to the extent that both subject this knowledge of life to a peculiar turn into the vital: Both thinkers show a way that would allow the knowledge of life to be described not only as an appropriate access to life, but as an expression of life. Within the structure of a vital knowledge of life, life takes on the double role of genitivus obiectivus and genitivus subiectivus.