Dominique Lecourt, author of the classics of Marxist philosophy of science Marxism and Epistemology Bachelard, Canguilhem, Foucault and Proletarian Science?, among many others, died in Paris on 1 May 2022. Here, Roger-Pol Droit remembers his life and work. Also included [on the Verso page] is a newly translated essay of Lecourt’s on Foucault’s The Archaeology of Knowledge.

Obituary for Dominique Lecourt by Roger-Pol Droit
Translated by David Fernbach. Originally published in Le Monde, Verso Books site, 1 June 2022.

Born in Paris on 5 February 1944, the philosopher Dominique Lecourt died at Lariboisière Hospital in Paris on 1 May 2022. He was the author of a copious body of work, with some forty volumes mainly centred on the relationship between philosophy and scientific or medical thought, but also a figure in publishing and cultural institutions who has left his mark on recent decades.

Lecourt studied under three…