Tosquelles and Canguilhem: A Pathbreaking Encounter

In the summer of 1944, philosopher Georges Canguilhem spent several weeks hiding and caring for wounded patients in the psychiatric clinic of Saint-Alban as a ‘resistance-physician’. During this time, Canguilhem took part in the clinical work carried out at Saint-Alban, among other things by examining and observing the patient ‘Mme. C…’. In return, as it were, Tosquelles, Bonnafé and others read and discussed the medical thesis that Canguilhem had defended at the Université de Strasbourg in 1943, the famous Essay on Some Problems Concerning the Normal and the Pathological. My paper explores the convergences between the psychological views of Canguilhem and Tosquelles. It focuses on questions concerning the status of mental illness (and queerness) and the ‘normativity’, i.e., the autonomy, of organic individuals. Lecture given at the international conference “QUEER TOSQUELLES - Anti-Fascism, Vagabonding Psychiatry, Non-Identitarian Lives” on 22 June 2024 at the Academy of Media Arts in Cologne (KHM) - https://www.khm.de/queertosquelles/.