« La connaissance biologique est un acte créateur ». Du néo-kantisme de Goldstein à l’anti-cartésianisme du mouvement structuraliste français

Abstract

This paper proposes to examine the contribution of Goldstein’s biological thinking to French philosophy in the immediate post-war years. We will begin by reiterating the idea of mankind in Goldstein’s contemporary neurology. We will then recount the quarrel which took place between mechanist and vitalist biologists to show that criticism of the reflex concept is the condition to envision biology as a creative act. Finally, we will expose the ways French structuralist criticism of the subject used German structuralism to fuel its contestation of the idea of a human nature based on reason.