This paper attempts to introduce the problem of monsters as presented by Georges Canguilhem in his book La connaissance de la vie. The first part of the article is concerned with the book itself, especially with the part called “La monstruosité et le monstreux.” The second part of the article takes up the point with which the first part ended, primarily Claude Bernard and the connection between the question of the monsters and the notion of organization, which both allows and individualizes the life of living organisms. A monster is described as a creature that defies life, that is, as a contrapunct of life, which thus denies the duality of life and death as something that is mutually circumscribed and determined. The notion of “non-viability” is of great importance as a notion that can describe monsters and that is understood as an immanent impossibility of self-realization.
monster; norms; order; organization; organism; French philosophy; French epistemology; philosophy of biology; teratology
ISSN 0300-4414 (print)
ISSN 2788-3485 (online)
founded 1968
Published by Society for the History of Sciences and Technology http://www.sdvt.cz
Pavel Mervart Publishing http://www.pavelmervart.cz/
