[PHILOS-L] Call for Proposals – Historical Epistemology Workshop “Examining Current Medicine through Historical Epistemology”
Caroline Angleraux
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Dear all,
We are pleased to share the call for proposals for the historical epistemology workshop on the theme: “Examining Contemporary Medicine through Historical Epistemology”. It will take place on 9–10 April 2026 at MSH Paris Nord (Paris, France).
This workshop is the 11th edition of the annual meetings of the International Research Network on Historical Epistemology. Its aim is not so much to demarcate historical epistemology as a narrowly defined field by sharply distinguishing it from other approaches to the study of science, but rather to create a space for dialogue on a plurality of philosophical inquiries concerning the history of knowledge. What unites these approaches is their shared focus on the conditions under which scientific fields and their objects emerged. Historical epistemology, in this broad sense, aims to describe and critically assess the dynamics specific to the historicity of a scientific object in order to shed light on present questions.
The aim of this 11th edition is to draw on the resources of historical epistemology to examine the biomedical sciences, particularly their most contemporary practices. While historical epistemology has been applied to a very wide range of fields in the natural sciences, formal knowledge and the human sciences, it is equally true that the medical sciences have long constituted one of the most significant areas of application for this approach, at least since the work of Georges Canguilhem and Michel Foucault. Georges Canguilhem sought to understand the epistemological specificity of the life sciences and to clarify the relationship between scientific research and therapeutic practices in the knowledge of living organisms. The different stages of Michel Foucault's work contributed to questioning different aspects of medical discourse and practices, from The Birth of the Clinic to the study of forms of biopower. Following in their footsteps, Ian Hacking investigated the role of statistical reasoning in medicine and demonstrated, through the notion of the looping effect, how psychiatric classifications in turn transform the behaviour of the individuals they target. More recently, the fruitfulness of this tradition for the analysis of contemporary medicine has been illustrated in a growing body of work (e.g. Gaille 2014, Giroux 2010). In line with this research, we are therefore organising a workshop devoted to the study of medical knowledge, healthcare practices and health policies through the lens of historical epistemology.
While it is of course possible to submit contributions that offer a reinterpretation of seminal texts in the historical epistemology of medicine, this workshop will be structured around three main themes:
- Beyond dichotomies: conceptual tools for thinking about medicine
Historical epistemology has identified several fundamental conceptual pairs for studying medicine, such as normal/pathological, analytical medicine/synthetic medicine, practitioner/patient. These distinctions, which structure Canguilhem's thinking on medical knowledge, have been reinvested in the analysis of contemporary phenomena: patient triage (Lachenal, Lefève, Nguyen 2014), the figure of the expert patient (Lefève 2014), predictive medicine (Olivier 2021), and computational medicine (Corteel 2019). The book edited by Mathieu Arminjon, Pierre-Olivier Méthot and Céline Cherici (2022) revisits the distinction between normal and pathological in light of contemporary transformations in medicine (psychiatry, microbiome biology, epidemiology, etc.) and thus shows how a renewed use of these categories can serve as a tool for analysing modern medicine.
However, many questions remain open. For example, the ability of historical epistemology to articulate scientific knowledge, healthcare organisation and social values can be used to analyse forms of epistemic injustice in medicine. Similarly, the pluralisation of the medical world (which is no longer reducible to the doctor/patient relationship alone, but involves a constellation of health professionals and institutional structures) calls for a renewed use of the conceptual tools of historical epistemology. Finally, the growing integration of artificial intelligence into medical practices further complicates this landscape. Whether it be self-diagnostic devices or the use of AI to bypass professional consultations (e.g. in mental health), many contemporary issues remain to be illuminated by the French tradition and are likely, in turn, to fuel the reinterpretation of classical concepts.
Beyond the few cases mentioned here, this first line of research proposes to explore how the conceptual tools of historical epistemology can be reinvested to account for current transformations in medicine, moving beyond inherited dichotomies and opening up new critical perspectives.
- The methods of proof in medicine
Historical epistemology studies how scientific fields employ the concepts of truth, proof, and error. Applied to medicine, it reminds us that medicine is not simply a field for technical application of biological knowledge; its concepts, methods, and criteria for validity are imbued with values. In particular, history has shown that medicine, as a field of specific knowledge production, had to develop its own concept of proof, both descriptive and normative. Several contemporary issues can be addressed from this perspective. For example, the use of massive databases, derived in particular from biomarker sequencing or medical imaging, raises questions about the nature of data and the conditions under which medical knowledge is produced. In this respect, the emergence of personalized medicine and the development of evidence-based medicine, for example, highlight these concerns. The growing integration of artificial intelligence is further complicating this landscape. In certain fields, such as medical image recognition, AI systems are outperforming humans (for example, in the identification of malaria parasites). However, their epistemological status remains uncertain.
Methodological issues surrounding evidence are also crucial (Allamel-Raffin 2019). Since their emergence in the mid-20th century, randomized controlled trials (RCTs) have become the gold standard for evaluating treatments (Fagot-Largeault 1992), but their limitations are debated: their ability to establish causal inferences is limited, and they provide little insight into the underlying biological mechanisms. Other approaches (case-control, observational, or experimental studies) offer alternatives, but they in turn raise debates about the validity and robustness of inferences. Methodological choices shape what is accepted as evidence and concretely condition the criteria for bringing drugs to market and, more broadly, the political economy of health. The history of the connection between tobacco and lung cancer, from Fisher's work to the studies by Doll and Hill in the 1950s, illustrates these tensions.
In this sense, the stakes regarding evidence are not only epistemic, but also political. The way health agencies administer evidence determines regulations, and it is often challenging to align knowledge production with regulatory standards (Douglas 2000). The gap between regulatory authorities and the state of biological knowledge is particularly clear in areas such as carcinogenicity, teratogenicity, and endocrine disruptors, for which explanatory models are still under debate.
This line of research therefore seeks to examine current transformations in medical evidence at the interface between the conceptual, methodological, and political aspects, using the tools of historical epistemology. We also examine the historical change in the forms of evidence according to changes in both the epistemic and non-epistemic contexts.
- Disciplinary relations in medicine
The concept of evidence also illustrates the place that medicine plays in the ecosystem of life sciences, as it draws on several fields of biological research using its own set of methods. Canguilhem stresses that medicine, as the art of healthcare, relies on scientific knowledge without ever being limited to it. As such, he argues that medicine cannot be understood as a straightforward application of biological sciences, but rather as an original technique with its own purposes, informed by diverse bodies of knowledge. Reciprocally, medicine itself guides some scientific research by raising new questions within a strictly biological framework. This leads us to think of medicine as a place where disciplines meet and interact, rather than as the straightforward application of a unique body of knowledge, and which also drives the research agenda in biology. Yet contemporary forms of knowledge production tend to closely integrate fundamental and applied research. Similarly, projects are increasingly being conducted in interdisciplinary environments where biology, medicine, computer science, social sciences, and environmental sciences intersect. For example, One Health, which embeds ecology in the analysis of zoonoses, gained particular importance during the Covid-19 pandemic. It illustrates the broadening of the medical perspective beyond the traditional doctor/patient relationship and shows how disciplinary relationships are reshaping the very boundaries of what is defined as a medical issue. It reminds us that the links between disciplines also affect the institutional and political organization of medicine.
This use of diverse knowledge for treatment also raises the question of the disciplinary hierarchies it entails. For example, we might consider how medical humanities find their place in research and training structures. Their integration is often marked by power struggles with biomedical disciplines, demonstrating that the balance between different areas of knowledge stems as much from political choices as from scientific evidence. In this context, the tools of historical epistemology provide resources for analyzing the conditions that define the relations between disciplines and the forms of power that shape them.
This line of research seeks to explore how the lens of historical epistemology can provide a better understanding of disciplinary relationships in medicine, in their conceptual, institutional, and political dimensions, as well as questioning and reconfiguring them.
*
This workshop aims to create an opportunity for philosophers and historians of science with diverse methodological approaches to engage with each other. It also encourages dialogue with representatives from other disciplines in the humanities, social sciences, and clinical medicine.
Proposals for presentations (max. 500 words, plus a short overview of the author) should be sent to us before February 28, 2026 (response date March 7), in Word or PDF format to epistemolog...@gmail.com . The event will be held in both English and French.
Keynotes:
Cornelius Borck (Universität zu Lübeck)
Marie-France Mamzer (Université Paris Cité)
Organizing committee:
Caroline Angleraux (IHPST)
Lucie Fabry (LIR3S, Université Bourgogne Europe)
Iván Moya-Diez (IMGWF, Universität zu Lübeck)
Perceval Pillon (IHPST, Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne/CNRS)
Matteo Vagelli (Université Ca' Foscari de Venise)
With the financial support of:
IMGWF, Universität zu Lübeck.
IHPST (UMR 8590), Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne/CNRS.
LIR3S (UMR7366), Université de Bourgogne/CNRS.
MSH Paris Nord (UAR 3258, CNRS/Université Paris 8/USPN).
SCIPLU MSCA2024_0000054,
*
Bibliography
Allamel-Raffin Catherine (2019), “Quel est l’apport de la sémiotique visuelle à la réflexion sur « l’objectivité » des images scientifiques ?”, Signata, 10.
Arminjon Mathieu, Méthot Pierre-Olicier, Chericci Céline (2022), Le normal et le pathologique : des catégories périmées?, Editions Matériologiques.
Canguilhem George (1972), Le normal et le pathologique, PUF.
Corteel Mathieu (2019), “L’émergence de l’épistémè computationnelle en médecine”, in Jean-François Braunstein, Ivan Moya Diez et Matteo Vagelli (eds.), L’épistémologie historique. Histoire et méthodes, pp. 227-242.
Douglas, Heather (2000), “Inductive risk and values in Sciences”, Philosophy of Science, 67, 4, pp. 559-579.
Fagot-Largeault Anne (1992). “Les origines de la notion d’essai contrôlé randomisé en médecine”, Les procédures de preuves sous le regard de l'historien des sciences et des techniques”, Cahiers d'histoire et de philosophie des sciences, 40, pp. 281-300.
Gaille Marie (2014) (ed.), “Philosophie de la médecine”, Revue de métaphysique et de morale, 82.
Giroux Élodie (2010), Après Canguilhem : définir la santé et la maladie : Définir la santé et la maladie, PUF.
Lachenal Guillaume, Lefève Céline, Nguyen Vinh-Kim (2014), “Le triage en médecine, une routine d’exception”, Les cahiers du Centre George Canguilhem, 6, pp. 1-25.
Lefève Céline (2014), “La relation médecin-maladie chez George Canguilhem”, Dialogue, 52, 4, pp. 695-723.
Meyer Nicolas (2024), “Bayesian Principles and Concepts and Their Applications in Medicine”, Médecine de la Reproduction, 26, 1, pp. 5-18.
Olivier Delphine (2021), Ausculter la santé. Généalogie d’une promesse médicale, Editions Matériologiques.
Thébaut Clémence (2021), “L’évaluation économique en santé au prisme de la typologie des épistèmès de Foucault”, Revue de philosophie économique, 22, 1, pp. 129-157.
Thébaut Clémence, Dupont Jean-Claude, Jolivet Vincent, Scemama Olivier (2023), “Évaluer individuellement l’efficacité et l’efficience attendue des thérapeutiques dans l’aide à la décision médicale grâce à l’intelligence artificielle (IA) : quels enjeux éthiques ?”, Revue d'Ethique publique, 25,1.
Williamson Jon (2022), “Bayesianism from a philosophical perspective and its application to medicine”, The International Journal of Biostatistics, 19, 2, pp. 295-307.
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Caroline Angleraux
CAUTION: This email originated outside of the University. Do not click links unless you can verify the source of this email and know the content is safe. Check sender address, hover over URLs, and don't open suspicious email attachments. |
Dear all,
The deadline for the call for proposals for the historical epistemology workshop is extended to March 2nd. The theme of the event is : “Examining Contemporary Medicine through Historical Epistemology”. It will take place on 9–10 April 2026 at MSH Paris Nord (Paris, France).
This workshop is the 11th edition of the annual meetings of the International Research Network on Historical Epistemology. Its aim is not so much to demarcate historical epistemology as a narrowly defined field by sharply distinguishing it from other approaches to the study of science, but rather to create a space for dialogue on a plurality of philosophical inquiries concerning the history of knowledge. What unites these approaches is their shared focus on the conditions under which scientific fields and their objects emerged. Historical epistemology, in this broad sense, aims to describe and critically assess the dynamics specific to the historicity of a scientific object in order to shed light on present questions.
The aim of this 11th edition is to draw on the resources of historical epistemology to examine the biomedical sciences, particularly their most contemporary practices. While historical epistemology has been applied to a very wide range of fields in the natural sciences, formal knowledge and the human sciences, it is equally true that the medical sciences have long constituted one of the most significant areas of application for this approach, at least since the work of Georges Canguilhem and Michel Foucault. Georges Canguilhem sought to understand the epistemological specificity of the life sciences and to clarify the relationship between scientific research and therapeutic practices in the knowledge of living organisms. The different stages of Michel Foucault's work contributed to questioning different aspects of medical discourse and practices, from The Birth of the Clinic to the study of forms of biopower. Following in their footsteps, Ian Hacking investigated the role of statistical reasoning in medicine and demonstrated, through the notion of the looping effect, how psychiatric classifications in turn transform the behaviour of the individuals they target. More recently, the fruitfulness of this tradition for the analysis of contemporary medicine has been illustrated in a growing body of work (e.g. Gaille 2014, Giroux 2010). In line with this research, we are therefore organising a workshop devoted to the study of medical knowledge, healthcare practices and health policies through the lens of historical epistemology.
While it is of course possible to submit contributions that offer a reinterpretation of seminal texts in the historical epistemology of medicine, this workshop will be structured around three main themes:
- Beyond dichotomies: conceptual tools for thinking about medicine
Historical epistemology has identified several fundamental conceptual pairs for studying medicine, such as normal/pathological, analytical medicine/synthetic medicine, practitioner/patient. These distinctions, which structure Canguilhem's thinking on medical knowledge, have been reinvested in the analysis of contemporary phenomena: patient triage (Lachenal, Lefève, Nguyen 2014), the figure of the expert patient (Lefève 2014), predictive medicine (Olivier 2021), and computational medicine (Corteel 2019). The book edited by Mathieu Arminjon, Pierre-Olivier Méthot and Céline Cherici (2022) revisits the distinction between normal and pathological in light of contemporary transformations in medicine (psychiatry, microbiome biology, epidemiology, etc.) and thus shows how a renewed use of these categories can serve as a tool for analysing modern medicine.
However, many questions remain open. For example, the ability of historical epistemology to articulate scientific knowledge, healthcare organisation and social values can be used to analyse forms of epistemic injustice in medicine. Similarly, the pluralisation of the medical world (which is no longer reducible to the doctor/patient relationship alone, but involves a constellation of health professionals and institutional structures) calls for a renewed use of the conceptual tools of historical epistemology. Finally, the growing integration of artificial intelligence into medical practices further complicates this landscape. Whether it be self-diagnostic devices or the use of AI to bypass professional consultations (e.g. in mental health), many contemporary issues remain to be illuminated by the French tradition and are likely, in turn, to fuel the reinterpretation of classical concepts.
Beyond the few cases mentioned here, this first line of research proposes to explore how the conceptual tools of historical epistemology can be reinvested to account for current transformations in medicine, moving beyond inherited dichotomies and opening up new critical perspectives.
- The methods of proof in medicine
Historical epistemology studies how scientific fields employ the concepts of truth, proof, and error. Applied to medicine, it reminds us that medicine is not simply a field for technical application of biological knowledge; its concepts, methods, and criteria for validity are imbued with values. In particular, history has shown that medicine, as a field of specific knowledge production, had to develop its own concept of proof, both descriptive and normative. Several contemporary issues can be addressed from this perspective. For example, the use of massive databases, derived in particular from biomarker sequencing or medical imaging, raises questions about the nature of data and the conditions under which medical knowledge is produced. In this respect, the emergence of personalized medicine and the development of evidence-based medicine, for example, highlight these concerns. The growing integration of artificial intelligence is further complicating this landscape. In certain fields, such as medical image recognition, AI systems are outperforming humans (for example, in the identification of malaria parasites). However, their epistemological status remains uncertain.
Methodological issues surrounding evidence are also crucial (Allamel-Raffin 2019). Since their emergence in the mid-20th century, randomized controlled trials (RCTs) have become the gold standard for evaluating treatments (Fagot-Largeault 1992), but their limitations are debated: their ability to establish causal inferences is limited, and they provide little insight into the underlying biological mechanisms. Other approaches (case-control, observational, or experimental studies) offer alternatives, but they in turn raise debates about the validity and robustness of inferences. Methodological choices shape what is accepted as evidence and concretely condition the criteria for bringing drugs to market and, more broadly, the political economy of health. The history of the connection between tobacco and lung cancer, from Fisher's work to the studies by Doll and Hill in the 1950s, illustrates these tensions.
In this sense, the stakes regarding evidence are not only epistemic, but also political. The way health agencies administer evidence determines regulations, and it is often challenging to align knowledge production with regulatory standards (Douglas 2000). The gap between regulatory authorities and the state of biological knowledge is particularly clear in areas such as carcinogenicity, teratogenicity, and endocrine disruptors, for which explanatory models are still under debate.
This line of research therefore seeks to examine current transformations in medical evidence at the interface between the conceptual, methodological, and political aspects, using the tools of historical epistemology. We also examine the historical change in the forms of evidence according to changes in both the epistemic and non-epistemic contexts.
- Disciplinary relations in medicine
The concept of evidence also illustrates the place that medicine plays in the ecosystem of life sciences, as it draws on several fields of biological research using its own set of methods. Canguilhem stresses that medicine, as the art of healthcare, relies on scientific knowledge without ever being limited to it. As such, he argues that medicine cannot be understood as a straightforward application of biological sciences, but rather as an original technique with its own purposes, informed by diverse bodies of knowledge. Reciprocally, medicine itself guides some scientific research by raising new questions within a strictly biological framework. This leads us to think of medicine as a place where disciplines meet and interact, rather than as the straightforward application of a unique body of knowledge, and which also drives the research agenda in biology. Yet contemporary forms of knowledge production tend to closely integrate fundamental and applied research. Similarly, projects are increasingly being conducted in interdisciplinary environments where biology, medicine, computer science, social sciences, and environmental sciences intersect. For example, One Health, which embeds ecology in the analysis of zoonoses, gained particular importance during the Covid-19 pandemic. It illustrates the broadening of the medical perspective beyond the traditional doctor/patient relationship and shows how disciplinary relationships are reshaping the very boundaries of what is defined as a medical issue. It reminds us that the links between disciplines also affect the institutional and political organization of medicine.
This use of diverse knowledge for treatment also raises the question of the disciplinary hierarchies it entails. For example, we might consider how medical humanities find their place in research and training structures. Their integration is often marked by power struggles with biomedical disciplines, demonstrating that the balance between different areas of knowledge stems as much from political choices as from scientific evidence. In this context, the tools of historical epistemology provide resources for analyzing the conditions that define the relations between disciplines and the forms of power that shape them.
This line of research seeks to explore how the lens of historical epistemology can provide a better understanding of disciplinary relationships in medicine, in their conceptual, institutional, and political dimensions, as well as questioning and reconfiguring them.
*
This workshop aims to create an opportunity for philosophers and historians of science with diverse methodological approaches to engage with each other. It also encourages dialogue with representatives from other disciplines in the humanities, social sciences, and clinical medicine.
Proposals for presentations (max. 500 words, plus a short overview of the author) should be sent to us before March 2nd, 2026 (response date March 7), in Word or PDF format to epistemolog...@gmail.com . The event will be held in both English and French.