The death of Claude Blanckaert, a figure in the history of human sciences

The historian Claude Blanckaert died on October 28, at the age of 72 in Melun, the town where he was born and lived. The precision and rigor of his study of naturalist knowledge and human sciences from the 18th century^e au XX^e century have influenced many researchers. He was the promoter and decisive architect of a critical history of these, bringing together research through collective books and seminars.

Science against man (Autrement, 1993), by its title and by the variety of contributions, defined a program whose acuteness and topicality remain intact. His work was served by authentic human qualities combined with an insatiable intellectual curiosity – “you can only be a full-time researcher”he repeated.

Passionate about human paleontology and the stories of his discoveries, he had dreamed, with his baccalaureate, of going to East Africa to observe the work of Taieb, Johanson, Guillemot and Coppens in search of australopithecus remains. (Lucy). He imagined himself pioneering a field of research, that of prehistoric history. But, in the 1970s, the history of science remained essentially within the domain of philosophy.

New relationship to knowledge

Abandoning his electric guitar and his rock band, it was in a philosophy faculty, that of the University of Paris-XII, in Créteil, that he would prepare his diplomas. Her master’s thesis, supervised by Anne Fagot-Largeault, led her to study the history of the concept of the missing link. He discovered anthropology as it was envisaged in the 19th^e century, but also evolutionism as a global conception and representation of human history. He became aware of the importance of contextual factors and the complexity of the genealogies of scientific theories.

Claude Blanckaert also opened files that he would not close: that of the question of the origin of man, the paranthropes leading him to be interested in primatology and speculations on the border between the great apes and the man, but also to the complex question of the uses of the word “race”, of 19th century raciologists^e century to contemporary racism.

Claude Blanckaert entered the university nourished by the authors of his time – Roland Barthes and Michel Foucault in the lead – and discovered the strong influence of systems of thought, such as structuralism, on the community of human sciences, where the Marxist influence remained strong. In the maze of ideas and schools, he opened an original path, supported by the historian Jacques Roger. At his side, he discovered a universe, that of history and the historical method, but also a new relationship to knowledge, in particular through his frequent attendance at the history of life sciences seminar.

He concludes that it is necessary to understand sciences in their contextual dimension, as an activity situated in a time and an environment, and in their own historicity. This historical approach to the history of science, combined with a close study of texts, however strange or hermetic they may appear to the contemporary reader, will henceforth compose the Blanckaert style.

Benevolent curiosity

Under the direction of Jacques Roger, he defended his doctoral thesis in 1981, Monogenism and polygenism in France from Buffon to Paul Broca, 1749-1880. It was praised for the finesse of the demonstration, the quality of the analyzes and the richness of the references used. The presence of paleontologist Yves Coppens on the jury recalled, beyond the obvious nod to the source of his intellectual commitment, Claude Blanckaert’s wish to promote a necessary dialogue between disciplines.

After a few years as a teacher in professional high schools, he became a research fellow at the CNRS (1985) and joined the Alexandre-Koyré Center (1989), which he helped to establish as an institutional anchor for the history of science. human beings recorded in the long period of the 18th century^e and XIX^e centuries.

With benevolent curiosity, Claude Blanckaert discovered and welcomed the work of other researchers and especially that of young people. Each meeting was for him an opportunity to establish a direct relationship, to listen, to discuss and, eventually, to“object without being abrupt”. The places for this dialogue were numerous, whether it was the history of human sciences seminar, the “Museum, object of history” seminar, the French Society for the History of Human Sciences that he had co-founded the Committee of Historical and Scientific Works or the editorial committees of the Review of the history of the human sciences and the Summary review. Claude Blanckaert was a man of collectives, whether he founded them or participated in them, always eager to learn and exchange with colleagues.