Tarde, Cournot et la fin des temps

Abstract

Francois Vatin, Tarde, Coumot and the End of Time ; This paper proposes a new interpretation of Gabriel Tarde's science fiction novel published in 1896 and titled A Fragment of Future History (English translation published in 1905 as Underground Man). Influenced by the philosopher Augustin Cournot, Tarde imagined a world where the extinction of the sun forced a realization that time is finite. This realization of the possibility of collective death evoked in Tarde's novel may have influenced the emergence of sociology at the end of the nineteenth century.