Do Texts Have A Shelf Life?

Supersessionism, Antiquarianism, and the History of Thought

Why read Aristotle’s physics, if he’s been proven to be wrong, is the kind of question a contemporary physicist might ask if her sole goal were to master the cutting edge of her discipline.

Supersessionism is the belief that once old ideas and texts are disproven we no longer need them.

At the opposite end of the spectrum is antiquarianism, the view that …