Before Tomorrow- Epigenesis and Rationality

by Catherine Malabou

  15. CPJ, §59, p. 225.

  16. CPR, pp. 691–2, A833/B861.

  17. CPR, p. 387, A299/B356.

  18. CPR, p. 402, A326–7/B383.

  19. CPR, p. 691, A833/B861.

  20. CPR, p. 692, A834/B862.

  21. CPJ, introduction, section II, p. 63.

  22. CPJ, introduction, section II, p. 63.

  23. CPJ, introduction, section IX, p. 81.

  24. CPJ, introduction, section III, p. 64.

  25. CPJ, introduction, section IX, p. 81.

  26. CPJ, introduction, section IX, pp. 81–2.

  27. CPJ, introduction, section II, p. 63.

  28. This integration is only possible due to the fact that “the principle of the purposiveness of nature [. . .] is a transcendental principle.” CPJ, introduction, section V, p. 69.

  29. The expression of reality that only exists for thought comes from CPR, “On the Schematism of the Pure Concepts of the Understanding,” regarding the schema of the triangle: “[T]he schema of the triangle can never exist anywhere except in thought [. . .].” CPR, p. 273, A141/B180.

  CONCLUSION

  This moment might be called “historic,” if we stop taking history for the absolute other of nature, and meaning for the result of their difference. The question of a new state of history and meaning in the age of the epigenetic paradigm is fundamental. It announces a deep displacement of the relation between the symbolic and the biological, which is no longer one of mutual irreducibility, but instead is one of exchange.

  In his discussion with Changeux, Ricœur says: “I very particularly appreciate the contribution neuroscience makes to our debate when it introduces, beyond the genetic composition of functions, the ‘epigenetic’ development of the brain, thus making individual histories of development possible.” But, he continues, “that doesn’t mean that any advance will have been made in understanding the link between this underlying epigenetic development and the individual history of the human subject.”1

  Personally, I disagree. Some advance will have been made. To the point where perhaps we can no longer really understand what, for so long, kept them apart.

  Notes

  1. Changeux and Ricœur, What Makes Us Think?, p. 75.

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