ABSTRACT
Interestingly enough, both Georges Canguilhem and Raymond Aron wrote dissertations dedicated to the process of concept formation. While Aron was preoccupied with locating the boundaries of objectivity in the creation of historical concepts, Canguilhem was searching for the boundaries of objectivity in biological ones, particularly those devoted to ideas of the normal and the pathological. If Aron's insistence on freedom was unsettling, Canguilhem's was nothing short of revolutionary, as it flew directly in the face of Darwinian orthodoxy. Given the materiality of life and human nature, both Aron and Canguilhem accepted the necessity of causal reasoning. Like Aron, Canguilhem accepted the Immanuel Kantian premise that knowledge is obtained through the creation of concepts. Concepts such as "reason" and "progress" were little more than abstract possibilities to Aron, ideals that in themselves did nothing to dispel the specter of tragedy from history or, conversely, assure the moral progress of human beings.
