The rupture of French historical epistemology with neo-Kantianism: Bachelard and Canguilhem in the face of Brunschvicg and Alain

As well as neo-Kantianism, phenomenology and analytical philosophy, French historical epistemology also had its emergence in the context of the crisis of the sciences at the turn of the 20th century. Due to their own developments, the works of Gaston Bachelard and Georges Canguilhem broke, each in its path, respectively with the neo-Kantianism represented by Brunschvicg (in Bachelard’s case) and by Alain (in Canguilhem’s case). In this article, we propose to draw some epistemological, ethical, and political consequences of these two ruptures, briefly analyzing the particularities of each of the two cases