Introduction à L’arbre de la science d’Eugène Huzar (1857)

Abstract

Eugène Huzar is worth reading today because he is the first author to offer a philosophy of technology based on catastrophism. In his two books which have been strangely forgotten, La fin du monde par la science (1855) et L’arbre de la science (1857), he summarised environemental and technological debates of the time: deforestation and climate change, vaccination and population degeneration, railroad catastrophes, etc. Huzar reconsider progress not as technological mastery over nature but rather as technology running out of control. In his theory, human history evolves along cycles of progress and technological catastrophes, which restore a state of savagery. So as to delay the end of the present cycle, Huzar envisions a world council in charge of maintaining the global harmonies of nature.

Keywords

• Huzar
• technology
• sciences
• progress
• catastrophism