The irregularity of life in the face of idealization of health

Abstract

This article discusses Georges Canguilhem's critique of the idealization of health, starting from an analysis of the view received about Descartes' ideas by Western medicine theorists. We will see how Canguilhem will find in the “positivist doctrine” a rectification of Cartesian determinism that in clinical practice operated in order to establish processes of normalization of individuals. His criticism was an effort to overcome the rationalist and anthropocentric perspective, present in science and medical practice, and raised fundamental questions about the role of the concept of life within contemporary reflections on the biomedical model; allowing an opening to the filial feeling; the perception of the patient as a protagonist in the healing process and the understanding of medicine as an art of care.