The erudite humility of the historian: the 'critical epistemology' of Georges Lantéri-Laura.

This paper analyses the historical and epistemological work of the French psychiatrist Georges Lantéri-Laura (1930-2004) within the context of the French 'tradition' of history and philosophy of sciences, with special reference to Georges Canguilhem and Michel Foucault. After an introduction devoted to a critical survey of the most recent works on the history and historiography of psychiatry in French, the paper outlines Lantéri-Laura's approach by focusing especially on the role played by the methodological concept of 'semiology' as regards the relation between medicine and psychiatry. The last part of the paper draws attention to the relation between the history and philosophy of psychiatry in light of Lantéri-Laura's 'critical epistemology'.