Comte's Lamarckian Heritage

Michel Bourdeau (1)

1 IHPST - Institut d'Histoire et de Philosophie des Sciences et des Techniques

Comte praised Lamarck highly as a biologist and attributed to him two main contributions: his seminal contribution to environmental theory and the way he conceived animal hierarchy. Given that the first point is now well documented, we are only dealing with the second one, which is less favorable to Comte, as biologists disagree today with Lamarck on this subject. We explain first how Comte uses biology in his sociology: the Lamarckian animal series is the first scientific example of progress and social progress is only an extension of it. We then present the Lamarck-Cuvier controversy about classification and show how Lamarck's insistence on the role of external circumstances was a way out of the difficulties he encountered in the construction of the animal series.

Mots clés: Classification; animal series; environment; biology and sociology

Domaines: Histoire, Philosophie et Sociologie des sciences

Michel Bourdeau. Comte's Lamarckian Heritage. 2010. ⟨halshs-00596702⟩