Abstract
The proximity of the reflections of Freud and Canguilhem appears in their published works as for their reflection on health and pathology. Both of them have widely contributed to the blurring of their categorical distinction and the cross-reading of their works invites us to go beyond the theoretical and nosographical reductions. For them health is not measured by the adaptation of the subject to the standards imposed on him. Health is “normativity”: the capacity to be subject to its norms. But the consultation of the philosopher’s archives allows us to highlight a much stronger direction : this perspective was initiated by Canguilhem himself in a philosophical thesis that has remained unpublished. The unpublished research notes reveal the subject - error- and the elaboration in fragments from the first years to the last period of his teaching. It is in support of the Freudian metapshychology that Canguilhem renews the philosophical interpretation of this problem. Here we develop this thought process of Canguilhem with Freud, starting from the analysis of the discomfort in modern culture- discomfort with normativity, with social relationships, with the “ progress “ of knowledge and technology-and in thinking about the conditions of its surpassing.