Auguste Comte’s Concept of Systematic Obsolescence, by Which All Truly Unarguable Views Must Spontaneously Fade Away

Abstract

The usual account of Auguste Comte, thinker of the “positive” science, overshadows his attention to the “spectacle of destruction” (and of obsolescence), to which the metaphysical state of human knowledge and humanity offers the stage. I first illustrate the understanding of this Comtian metaphysical state as both a progressive and self-destructive transformation of “theology”, using an example drawn from the history of astronomy (Longomontanus). The broader relevance of this conception is then assessed in the field of social philosophy, so that the realm of natural sciences is finally re-examined with the analysis of Comte’s criticisms of the theory of chemical affinity (Berthollet).