I wanted to add a quick post to announce the publication of the English-language translation of Georges Canguilhem’s Knowledge of Life (La Connaissance de la vie 1952/1965), translated by Stefanos Geroulanos & Daniela Ginsburg, edited and foreword by Paola Marrati & Todd Meyers.

Here’s what has been said about the book:

An exceptional grasp of the enduring philosophical problems of biological research.
—Harry Marks, The Johns Hopkins University

It is invaluable that this important set of essays by France’s premier historian of science is now available in English. They are sure to have a major impact on a wide range of disciplines.
—Paul Rabinow, University of California, Berkeley

Developments in the sciences of life from neuroscience to synthetic biology have once more placed questions of life itself at the centre of our intellectual, ethical, political and practical agenda. Canguilhem’s reflections on these issues from half a century ago remain compelling and insightful, not just for their substance, but as much for their ethos, for the style of reflection on the transactions between knowledge and life that they exemplify and provoke. This excellent translation of La Connaissance de la vie will be welcomed across the social and human sciences as we struggle to come to grips with the implications of our new knowledge of vitality, and the powers of control that it seems to give us.
—Nikolas Rose, Martin White Professor of Sociology and Director of bios Centre, London School of Economics