Abstract
The academic path of Jean Gayon (1949–2018) follows in the wake of the “French style” in epistemology, but he is also one of the first representatives of philosophy of biology in France. In the light of this double philosophical heritage, this chapter re-examines the relations between the works of Gayon, the tradition in which he first studied, and the one he later adopted, but not without reservations. Tracing his intellectual journey, this article explores why he naturally appears as a Canguilhemian, a view against which he defends himself. Attending to the connexions that he established with the philosophers of biology will bring to light the growing tension that inhabits him, from the middle of the 1980s onwards, and which led him to identify some of the limits inherent to the matrix of historical epistemology, without disowning his first philosophical tradition. Finally, in an attempt to reconcile two approaches, I will underline the emergence in the thought of Jean Gayon of a third way seeking to overcome the opposition between a “unitarian” style that seeks to make a clear break with the history of science and its philosophical past, and the “dualist” style which tends to stay above scientific debates, and which accepts a clear distinction between the work of science and the work of philosophy. Reuniting the history and the philosophy of the sciences, privileging the long durée and depths of history, where the problems of biology unfold, while also recognizing the value of analysing the conceptual puzzles which structure the contemporary life sciences, the oeuvre of Jean Gayon illustrates the complementary character of these disciplines.
Translated by Henry Dicks and modified from Méthot (2018).
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Notes
- 1.
Guided by the ideal of interdisciplinarity and keeping its distance from the history of science and the epistemology of medicine, philosophy of biology saw a rapid rise in Anglo-Saxon countries from the middle of the 1970s onwards. See Nicholson and Gawne (2014); Méthot (2023). On the “French style” in philosophy of science, see Braunstein (2002).
- 2.
- 3.
Gayon’s correspondence with Dagognet is in the “Fonds Jean Gayon” at the Pasteur Institute. GNJ.Cor2.
- 4.
The “conceptual adventure” is cited in Jean Gayon’s letter to Dagognet (28/10/1982).
- 5.
One thinks of course of the opening chapter in Ideology and Rationality in the History of the Life Sciences, where Canguilhem wrote that “in a sense, epistemology has always been historical” (1988, p. 10 [1977]).
- 6.
Here is the letter Gayon sent to several American biologists and historians of biology. “Dear sir, I have read with most interest your main contributions to the evolutionary biology, and a number of your historical studies about the ‘evolutionary synthesis’. Both have been determinative, in my personal itinerary, as well as the teaching of Claudine Petit (University of Paris 7). I am indeed working on a thesis under the direction of François Dagognet (Professor at the University of Lyon 3). My research purports to write a comprehensive history of the synthetic theory of Evolution, using as a basis my previous studies in both philosophy and biology. For, while I am ‘Professeur agrégé de philosophie’ and belong to the epistemological tradition initiated by Georges Canguilhem, I have also received a master’s degree in biology and worked one year under the direction of Claudine Petit, in her laboratory of evolutionary genetics” (letter from Gayon to Mayr, 21/1/1984. Source: Ernst Mayr Papers, box 32, folder 1379).
- 7.
Mayr is said to have expressed a desire to meet Canguilhem at the time of his visit to as a professor at the Collège de France in 1978. Canguilhem apparently slipped away and a reciprocal distrust subsequently arose between the two men (email from Gayon to Méthot, 5/2/2017). Mayr’s visit did on the other hand elicit a considerable interest amongst biologists and historians of science. “Various people in Paris have expressed to me their wish to be able to attend the lectures. This includes Claudine Petit (and her assistants), Jean Dorst (and his associates), and various historians of science such as Jacques Roger, Mirko Grmek, and Jean Théodoridès” (letter from Mayr to Jacob, 30/12/1977. Ernst Mayr Papers, box 25, folder 1269).
- 8.
- 9.
“This chapter is very much indebted to R. M. Burian, M. Delsol, M. Ghiselin, M. Grene, D. Hull, B. Hecht, M. Hecht, and E. Mayr for their encouragements and fruitful criticisms” (Gayon 1991, p. 44).
- 10.
On this paper, see Méthot (2022).
- 11.
See on this point Martínez-Contreras, this volume.
- 12.
For a different appraisal of Gayon’s relation to philosophy of biology, see Loison, this volume.
- 13.
As the philosopher of sciences, Alex Rosenberg, remarked to Werner Callebaut, “anyone who comes within their [Mayr, Gould, Lewontin] orbit is likely to become a protégé” (in Callebaut, 1994, p. 463).
- 14.
“When I heard Marjorie Grene the first time, I said to myself: ‘I’ve already heard something like this before’. It reminded me of Léon Brunschvicg, Alexandre Koyré, Georges Canguilhem” (Gayon and Petit, 2018, p. 59).
- 15.
For example, in his review of 1991, published in Evolutionary Biology, he specifies that he is reacting “as a philosopher” (1991, p. 2).
- 16.
In one of his latest articles, covering the history of philosophy of biology from the nineteenth century to our time, Hull admitted that “German and French philosophers of biology have not had the impact that they perhaps should have had on Anglophone philosophy of biology” (Hull, 2008, p. 11).
- 17.
The work of Joseph H. Woodger, for example, was rapidly set aside and judged in an excessively negative and critical way by Ruse, Hull and other philosophers of biology. See Nicholson and Gawne (2014).
- 18.
Further, Jean Gayon frequently encouraged his doctoral students to draw on the best of these different research traditions. On this point, see Giroux, this volume.
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Acknowledgements
A first version of this chapter was published in 2018. I had the chance to present it to Jean Gayon during the workshop in his honor in Paris a year before. I would like to thank Dick Burian, Élisabeth Gayon, Jon Hodge, and Michael Ruse, who agreed to share with me their memories of Jean Gayon. I also address my thanks to Dick Burian, Jean Gayon, Élodie Giroux, Camille Limoges, Philippe Huneman, Laurent Loison, and Charles Wolfe for their rereading of a first version of this text, as well as Nathalie Queyroux, who oversees the CAPHES (Georges Canguilhem Archives) as well as the archivists at Harvard University (Ernst Mayr Papers) and the Institut Pasteur (Jean Gayon Papers) for their precious assistance with my research.
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Méthot, PO. (2023). From Historical Epistemology to the Philosophy of Biology: A Look at Jean Gayon’s Intellectual Journey. In: Méthot, PO. (eds) Philosophy, History and Biology: Essays in Honour of Jean Gayon. History, Philosophy and Theory of the Life Sciences, vol 30. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-28157-0_2
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