Jean Starobinski and the dialectic between literature and modern science

Abstract

This study aims to outline the conception of modern European history that is the basis of Jean Starobinski’s studies of medical history but also to highlight its dialectical character. For Starobinski, art and modern thought were born from the reactions of what he calls “poetic language” to the birth and progress of scientific language. The dialectical relationship between these two languages, therefore, lies at the very foundation of European modernity and constitutes the engine of its becoming. Therefore, many of Starobinki’s essays aim to reproduce, in writing and through concepts, the movement of this complex relationship between art and science.