The Elementary Particles

by Michel Houellebecq

Auguste Comte, in particular the letters to Clotilde de Vaux and Subjective Synthesis, the philosopher’s last, unfinished work. Even from the standpoint of the scientific method, Comte could be considered the true founder of positivism. No metaphysical or ontological system of the time appealed to him. It is probable, as Djerzinski points out, that if Comte had been in the intellectual circle of Niels Bohr between 1924 and 1927, he would have maintained his position of intransigent positivism and allied himself to the Copenhagen interpretation. In any case, the philosopher’s insistence on the reality of social structures as opposed to the fiction of individual existence, his continued interest in historical processes and currents of public opinion, and his deep sentimentality lead one to think he might have been at home with a more recent ontological overhaul, the replacement of an ontology of objects with an ontology of states, established by the work of Zurek, Zeh and Hardcastle.