The decline of the idea of progress

Abstract

The philosphers of the Englightenment conceived Progress as evidence of mankind's natural perfectibility. In the nineteenth century this image of the future was tarnished by abrupt epistemological changes and technical surprises. An unforeseen consequence of the invention and use of the steam engine was the breaking up of on idea that had acted as a principle for preservingt values, caused by the principle of the dissipation of energy in physics and the revolutionary analyses of the relations of socio-economic inequality in industrial societies. With Freud and Levi-Strauss, Carnot's principle becam the principle for judging history.

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