La Pensée cosmogonique de Buffon: percer la nuit de temps (review)

A great deal of scholarship already exists on Buffon, making the development of a fresh perspective on his œuvre a rather daunting task, but this is exactly what is achieved by Benoît de Baere in La Pensée cosmogonique de Buffon. For those seeking a straightforward introduction to Buffon however, this isn't the place to start; the book's aim is not an explication of the scientist's cosmogony, but rather a detailed study of the methodology that underlies it, with particular reference to epistemology, rhetoric and semiotics. De Baere does an admirable job of unpacking an especially tricky body of epistemological thought, one that is characterized by the conviction that all knowledge is related to human cognition and is — at least within the physical and moral realms — probabilistic by nature. Of course, having this as a starting-point compounds the (already manifold!) problems of attaining 'knowledge' with respect to a time in history that is not directly observable. The key to assembling a picture of the world's origins thus becomes the construction and assessment of analogies. Buffon was critical of his contemporaries and predecessors for accepting analogies or models simply on the basis of possibility, and strove instead to build acceptance on the basis of probability. There is, however, much more to Buffon's use of analogy than this, and de Baere devotes extensive discussion to various types, including metaphysical, historical and argumentative. In doing so, it is noted that Buffon regarded and employed analogy in a manner that is more complex than has previously been acknowledged. On a more profound level, de Baere illustrates how Buffon's cosmogonical work incorporates important elements of both literature and science. As such, it stands as testament to the idea that literature need not simply mean 'fictionality', and that science need not exclude concern with what may be termed 'poetics' and aesthetics. Having identified this marriage as lying at the heart of Buffon's approach, the way is paved for explaining how his Époques de la nature represents a transformation of natural history into a history of nature. In the words of de Baere, Buffon developed a 'maximalist' view of his endeavour; aiming not at the work of collecting or establishing facts, but with developing an understanding of the forces at work in nature and, what's more, a reasonable account of our origins. Here, a the paradox that constitutes one of the main themes of de Baere's book is fully revealed: an ahistorical, analogical account of the past may not be true in the strict, factual sense, but might contain a greater element of 'truthfulness' than a 'fact-based' chronology. This is a well-written book, dealing deftly with an array of intricate concepts. It also does a very good job of coming to terms with all of the relevant scholarship on Buffon. Perhaps most importantly, de Baere's work opens up — as is its aim — new avenues of investigation in terms of understanding the processes by which cosmogonies are assembled and displayed, as well as the connections between literature and science.