Cycles de la Nature, Cycles de l’Histoire. De la découverte des météores à la fin de l’âge d’or

From the 19th century onwards, the advent of the Darwinian revolution and Positivist thinking made ancient theories about the cycles of nature and history obsolete and contrary to modern conceptions of the linear evolution of science and human societies. More recently, however, contemporary political upheavals combined with the revisionist views of “discontinuity” in evolutionary theory in the last quarter of the 20th century (employed most notably by Stephen Jay Gould) have given renewed value to the notions of inequality, rupture and even “rhythms” throughout the course of human and natural history. 

The current volume, the product of two Conferences held in Le Mans in 2012 and 2013, aims to examine the scientific, philosophical, literary and iconographic works of Antiquity which utilise the concept of cycles, within the framework of a new critical and multi-disciplinary approach. All the papers collected herein attempt to question in a new light the ancient “evolutionary” theories about Man and Nature, and to trace their impacts in modern thought.