Discourses of Molecular Biology in France: A Philosophy of Life, Knowledge and Information

by John Marks

The 1950s and 1960s were the so-called 'golden age' of molecular biology and, in becoming molecular, biology staked a claim to be the definitive life science. This book looks at the emergence of molecular biology in the context of a set of closely linked scientific and philosophical discourses in post-war France, particularly focussing on the work and influence of the French molecular biologists François Jacob and Jacques Monod. Jacob and Monod made significant scientific breakthroughs in molecular biology in the post-war period, winning the Nobel Prize for their work on gene regulation in 1965. They were also both active in instigating much of the philosophical speculation that arose from this scientific work. Their work was enthusiastically received by the generation of French philosophers that included Michel Foucault, Michel Serres and Gilles Deleuze. These thinkers explored a number of connections between the functioning of the genetic code and structuralist analyses of language and knowledge. Situating the rise of molecular biology in France in the context of its key intellectual trends in the 1950s and 1960s, most notably structuralism, this book is a valuable and much needed undertaking.

198 pages, Hardcover

Published March 28, 2023