Fatti, valori e norme. La libertà dell’impersonale in Georges Canguilhem

This paper aims to expose the relevance of an impersonal element in the philosophical works of Georges Canguilhem before The Normal and the Pathological. In The Normal and Pathological and in other major writings, the impersonal element is given by the “normativity” of living beings. In the works from the 1920s and 1930s we can find the origins of this “impersonal element” and the political meaning Canguilhem has given to it. In particular this paper analyses some relevant texts from the young work of Canguilhem, concerning the theory of values, the theory of justice and the opposition between mechanicistic and organicistic visions of society and a particular relevance will be given to the 1935s pamphlet titled Le fascisme et les paysans. These selected writings will provide a new account about the development from a philosophy of values to the philosophy of normativity and will give us a new awareness about the role of the political experience of the young Author.