When we try to identify the contributions of sociology from France during its development in the 19th century, we are largely tracing the history of the discipline. Because it was in our country, in the 19th century that sociology was born, and it was still, in essence, a French

Durkheim (1858-1917)

Author:Durkheim

When we try to distinguish the contribution of sociology from France in the development of the 19th century, we are largely tracing the history of this discipline. Because was born in our country, in the 19th century, and it is still a French science in nature. If we call all the speculations about people's lives "sociology", then this science does emerge much earlier than the emergence of the words we use to call the subject today. Indeed, in this way, the different forms of theories of Plato and Aristotle on political organizations can be regarded as the first attempt of social science. People often see them in this way. It is undeniable that they are very important innovations and are part of the historical process that will eventually lead to the birth of sociology. They are the first example of applying reflection to social order. However, a science is to be produced, and applying reflection to the order of facts is not enough. Too much more than that, it must also be applied in a specific way. This is like medicine has existed for centuries before the emergence of physiology. No matter what inaccurate they have, these early medical knowledge undoubtedly have their own reflections, and like modern human physiology, they take physical phenomena as the object of exploration.

In fact, skills—even those that are methodical or reflective—are one thing, and science is another. The purpose of science is to recognize the facts only, and it does not care where this understanding can be applied. On the contrary, the purpose of skill and facts is to figure out what these facts can be used for, such as: what useful purposes these social facts can serve, what harmful effects they cause, and how to obtain certain results of one kind or another. Even in order to solve these problems, it is undoubtedly necessary to form an idea of ​​these things that want to function. To understand what functions something needs to be familiar with it. Therefore, any skill contains theory in itself. It is just that these theories are not the most urgent purpose of skills; for those practitioners, theories are only a way to achieve the goal of action. In order to focus on methodical reflection and thus reduce the chance of making mistakes, people must have time to engage in this reflection. On the contrary, actions are more or less urgent and unwaitable. This necessity of life requires us to quickly rebuild balance and make decisions immediately when there is an imbalance. Theories serving the urgency of action are often constructed hastily and simplifiedly. To a certain extent, reflection here is awakened because people have to use it when they act, and this reflection needs to be considered. But on the other hand, this reflection cannot be contrary to the purpose it serves, nor can it put aside urgent action indefinitely. Therefore, this reflection needs to be simplified to the appropriate limits. This reflection activity is content with reasoning and evidence because it cannot be carried out according to the prudence required by a reliable methodology. In most cases, the so-called evidence is cited only for the purpose of forming an argument. In fact, they are just instincts, passions, and prejudice that are disguised as dialectical forms. These things will only deceive, not meet our cognitive needs.

Only when the mind touches things, puts practical concerns aside, and regards the things themselves as their only purpose, can science come into being. By then, this exploration is no longer urged by the urgency of life, it has enough time to act and is in defense of all possibilities of unreasonable suggestions. But at the same time, this separation of theory and practice also proposes a relatively advanced state of mind.When studying facts, in order to achieve a perspective that "just to understand what facts are", people must recognize which specific type these facts belong to; this means that facts have a constant and unchanging state of existence, a nature that originates from the inevitable relationship of things. In other words, people must achieve the concept of law (la notion de lois); they feel the existence of these laws, which is the decisive element of scientific thought. Now, we have learned how slowly it is to form the concept of natural law and gradually expand into different natural fields. Not long ago, even in the field of inorganic matter, natural laws were still inconsistent and chaotic. It has only been recently introduced into thinking about life. This natural law has not yet been fully applied to the field of psychology. Therefore, we can imagine that this law must face the greatest difficulty in order to penetrate the world of social facts, which is precisely why sociology only appears at the last moment of scientific evolution.

natural law, this new expansion trend, has also encountered quite special resistance. First of all, it is necessary to fully interpret the concept of laws in the exclusive field of natural science. Although this condition is necessary, it is by no means sufficient. Because, for centuries, people's minds have become accustomed to imagining a gap between the physical world and the so-called "human world." People refuse to recognize the principles of the physical world, even those most basic principles, and the principles of the human world. As a result, the general trend is to place people and society outside of nature and separate disciplines about human (personal or social) life, believing that there is no analogy between these disciplines and even the highest physical sciences, even the highest physical sciences. This means that what people see from these disciplines is not real science, but ambiguous thinking. In this thinking, the connection between events often hides vague contingency. Therefore, this is closer to a literary description than a systematic analysis. To overcome these problems, we must abandon this dualism bias. And the only correct way is to obtain and give a vivid feeling about the unity of human knowledge.

At the end of the last century, these conditions seemed to be realized. The collapse of the old social system, in order to seek a good prescription to treat the ills suffered by society, stimulated it to apply itself to collective affairs. On the other hand, the unity of science is no longer something to be discovered, because the encyclopedia school claims this unity when it is an object. In addition, many studies after the rise of encyclopedia were obviously inspired by two vague feelings, that is, science is still to be discovered. It is Montesquieu and bore Dossel that are keenly aware of this gap and have made outstanding contributions to filling it. But neither of them touched the full content of the issue. They all realize that the continuity of social phenomena exhibits a specific order, but they have no clear conception of this order, its nature, or the steps that are most suitable for discovering it. They limit themselves to providing either witty or novel perspectives about social facts, rather than creating a completely new discipline, even its principles and methods. Their attempts are still talented personal works, but they cannot be used as the starting point of scientific traditions. There is no doubt that the practical concerns about the times will overwhelm people's moods and destroy the calmness and calmness that is indispensable as a scholar. What is certain is that once the storm of revolution passes, the concept of social science is miraculously formed.

was the first Saint Simon to clearly explain sociology, and this honor should belong to him. It was his belief in scientific omnipotence that inspired his conception. He regards the suffering experienced by European society as a disintegration state of the intellectual world (à leur état de désorganisation intelligence). takes this as the starting point and takes on the task of ending the intellectual unorganization state, replacing the old concept system that was dependent on and was clearly destroyed by the Great Revolution with an idea system that was harmonious with the order of new things. He believes that the constituent elements of this new knowledge system can only come from science at the source of all truth. But for this project, natural science does not provide the most useful contribution. In order to recreate the consciousness of society, the first thing that needs to be understood is "society". At that time, this most indispensable science about society did not exist. Therefore, from a practical perspective, it is urgent and necessary to establish this science. A creative and adventurous mind, eager to make a great career with your imagination and talented enthusiasm. Just like the new Columbus of the world of science, St. Simon is naturally attracted to the idea of ​​discovering a still unknown world and conquering it for science.

Shimon (1760-1825)

He gave this new science a new name. He called it "social physiology" (la physics. This science sees society as an organism in development and clearly distinguishes itself from those that study only a single organism, what St. Simon calls general physiology or special physiology. For Saint Simon, society is "not a simple collection of individuals. The reason for individual actions in this collection is only the arbitrary nature of the individual's will"; on the contrary, society is "a real existence, which is either full of vitality or staggering, depending on whether the organs of society fully realize the functions they are given" [1]. Social physiology From then on, "gao Xiang is above individuals who are only organs of the social organism, and the study of the organic functions of the social organism must be carried out like the special physiology of social individuals"[2]. But if human society constitutes a unique and self-contained reality (des réalités originales et sui generis), it is inevitably subject to the same determinism , like other parts of nature. Just as the law of gravity ruthlessly ruled the field of physics and chemistry, there is also a law that dominates social development, that is, law of progress . "To it (the law), people are just tools. Just as we do not have the ability to change the most primitive force that forces our planet to revolve around the sun according to our own will, we do not have the ability to escape the influence of social laws on our individuals, nor do we have the ability to control it." [3] The great goal of social physiology is to express social laws in such a way: to obey social laws by practicing the action process prescribed by social laws. To achieve this we need to do the same as we do in the field of natural sciences: observation. Because this law was not created by us, we will never find it through introspection, and this is only possible by examining the facts that show this law. Therefore, sociophysiology must have a strict empirical characteristic. Political issues must be dealt with in the same way as other related phenomena today” [4]. This method is scientific observation. Only by establishing a series of historical phenomena with the widest range of possible scope can we successfully perceive the direction of human evolution. Therefore, the research methods of new science are essentially historical methods. However, in order to achieve this function, history must be translated into scientific knowledge. From this point of view, history is still a baby in its infancy, a mere collection of facts and has not yet been linked to any theory; “It still cannot give people a way to summarize what is about to happen from facts that have already happened.”[5] therefore, the new science must elevate itself to the perspective of the nation that can only perform descriptive work, no longer limiting itself to considering the situation of this or that nation, but rather humanity (l' Humanité as a whole is placed in the process of continuous progressive evolution.

From now on, we no longer engage in fragmented thinking only on one side of social phenomena, but are committed to creating a new career towards scientific research. Even the two most essential features that science to be established will have, namely its empiricality and specialization, are clearly determined. The social field is associated with other fields, while maintaining its own appearance. However, Saint Simon's work is more about building grand programs than concrete research practices. In his works, no methodical attempt has successfully discovered the law of progress as the cornerstone of the entire social system. His views on this issue are scattered in various research directions. They are mostly fleeting intuitions, not consistent with each other, and there is no proper evidence to do so. It was August Conde that put the great plan conceived by Saint Simon into reality.

In a sense, it can be said that all the basic ideas of Conde sociology can be found in Saint Simon. But Conde did not limit himself to a quick glance at how these ideas could provide a foundation for the entire science; he would rather have created this science. He clearly defined the method of this science and set up a framework for this science. However, until that time, sociology was still in chaos and had no clear boundaries at its core. The very useful classification method introduced by Conde has been partially preserved. He divided sociology into two categories, and although the two were closely linked, it still required to be treated separately: social statics and social dynamics. Social statics put it in a specific stage of evolution The connection relationship between different elements of the same social system is the object of research. Social dynamics explores the laws of human society in succession, and it is the evolution of humanity in time that this past and subsequent past in human society constitutes the evolution of humanity in time. Conde was not satisfied with outlining this plan for science, but was responsible for the integration of this huge project with his independent activities. In statics, he only briefly described the problem and outlined the solution. But in dynamics, he intends to leave us a complete, and in his opinion a decisive discussion: The last two volumes of " Empirical Philosophy Tutorial " serve the purpose of (consacrés).

km (1798-1857)

So, what did this theory leave today? There are few propositions that can be fully preserved by today's science. Perhaps in the two little-known chapters about statics, there are some propositions that are most worthy of reference for today's research. As for the famous three-stage law that dominates the entire system, it is no longer tenable. Kongde does not have sufficient knowledge to deal with such a large-scale problem. In addition, the terms he proposed also make the problems facing dynamics more difficult to solve. In fact, the laws defined by Kongde are not based on the development of specific societies, but on the general sense of human society. When he reasoned, it seemed that humanity constituted a practical whole, as if human beings were the same society in a whole, always moving forward in the same direction in a straight line. But in fact, humanity is just a creation of reason, a term of the level of "genus" that indicates the integrity of many societies (terme) (terme) ( générique). Each special tribe, nation and country is the only, true, historic reality, and social science can, and must also pay attention to these reality. It is these various individuals at the collective level that appear and die, develop and regress, and human evolution is only a complex system composed of these special evolutions. Moreover, these specific evolutions are not in the same direction, nor are they the only different parts of a straight line. Humanity develops along different paths at the same time.Therefore, any doctrine that people pursue the same goal wherever they are, is based on a fundamentally false assumption.

Although the empirical conclusions reached by Kongde are difficult to preserve, we cannot deny the greatness of its work. In fact, he pioneered the efforts to establish an empirical science about various societies that are both consistent and methodical. Saint Simon undoubtedly glimpses of the possibility of this science development and what qualities it should show. However, it is one thing to confirm the possibility of a science, and it is another thing to actually realize it. The best way to overcome that obstacle to resisting building a new science is to try it decisively. Once it is achieved, although it must be imperfect, it has also begun to survive. This kind of survival is bound to be very difficult, because true creation does not lie in interesting ideas that can be enjoyed by intellectuals, but in grasping these ideas and making them realize by contacting them with things, coordinating them, and supporting them with evidence that can be logically absorbed and tested by others. This is actually what Comte did for sociology. Sociology can become a part of our scientific life, thanks to him. This is why Conde was regarded as the father of sociology, and the name "sociology" he gave to this science must have been preserved. In addition, in all his works, despite many mistakes, there are still fresh feelings inherent in sociology - a state of mind that people can enter only through sociological research. To this end, reading the last three volumes of the "Personal Philosophy Tutorial" is the best starting point for our minds to enter sociological research. To properly understand Conde, we are undoubtedly going back to Saint Simon. But no matter what Comte gained from his mentor, Comte is still an outstanding mentor to us.

It is worth noting that this plan that should have lasted does not last long. The movement initiated by Saint Simon ended, at least temporarily, Conde's "Tutorial Philosophy of the Perspectives". Neither Conde himself nor his disciples made any more efforts. For them, practical and political investment became so overwhelming that it hurts scientific investment. Moreover, from the moment their mentor Kongde passed away, all the knowledge activities ended. In this way, sociology had just emerged and disappeared from the horizon, and this recession lasted for at least thirty years.

Since this period was the second French Empire most of the time, people took it for granted that imperial autocracy had hindered scientific progress. However, it is difficult for us to explain how administrative management processes can have such a great impact on scholars' thoughts. Moreover, considering that the last volume of the "Personal Philosophy Tutorial" was published in 1842, the slowdown in sociological research activities should have occurred before the Second Empire period. This stagnation is actually a regression, and the reason must be found elsewhere. One thing that must be admitted is that the sources that gave birth to sociology and survived independently ultimately lose their power. In the first few years of the restoration of the Bourbon dynasty, a veritable desire for rationalism was developed. Everyone is looking forward to finding ways to rebuild a country's moral organization based solely on reason—that is, on science—. It is also in this rational jubilation that Saint Simonism, Fourierism, Condemnism and sociology emerged at the same time. But from the July Dynasty, this restless force began to silence. Perhaps it can be said that the hobby of reflection, especially the reflection on social affairs, is gradually dissipating. This state of mind was once briefly broken by the events of 1848. The 1848 revolution may have been only the last and inevitable faint response to the previous rational movement, which once shone brightly in the first half of the 19th century. This explains why the 1848 revolution died so briefly and quickly.

"Personal Philosophy Tutorial" Cover

Despite such a long period of depression, there is still a book during this period that can be regarded as a sociological contribution in a sense. This work is "On the Foundations of Our Knowledge" written by Cournot (Essai sur le fondement de nos con-naissances). In this work, Curno studied historical methods—they believed that this method could be applied to sociology; in addition, the second volume of his "Challenge of Basic Ideas" (Enchaînement des idées fondamentales) is dedicated to the study of social environment. But Kurno's purpose is not to establish a new knowledge, let alone develop it. he just tends to coordinate various concepts offered to him by existing science. He took various elements of historical philosophy from history, linguistics, and political economy, but did not attempt to impose a new discipline on top of these different disciplines that contained them, dominated them, and changed them by rebuilding their unity. Obviously these philosophical thoughts are not enough to update the sociological tradition. Moreover, the research on this aspect has not aroused the curiosity and attention of many people, nor has it formed the impact it deserves and should show.

It was not until the war in 1870 that sociology woke up again. The shock caused by the war stimulates people's hearts. The country finds itself facing the same problems as it was at the beginning of this century. The organization that constitutes this imperial system, more accurately, the facade, has just collapsed. The problem is to recreate another organization, or even an organization that can survive without the help of administrative power. It is an organization that is truly rooted in the nature of things. For this reason, it becomes inevitable to understand what the nature of things is. Therefore, the urgent need for a science about society is immediately felt by sociology.

Although we have traced the development of this discipline in the country where sociology was born, it has been chased by the excellent development momentum of sociology in England. The foundation of Conde's sociology, like any other sociology, is a principle that society is a natural entity, not a machine created by people based on plans that are conceived in advance. For Kong De, this is a basic scientific assumption and does not require evidence to support it. He was convinced that society was part of nature and did not need to point out how society was associated with other natural objects. And Spencer wants to point out this connection by connecting social organisms with living organisms and treating society as a type of organism. Of course, today, this comparison is definitely not rigorous or clear. There are as many differences between the biological and social spheres as they are similar. However, this ratio has some temporary advantage, which makes us more aware of the spontaneity of social life, and like other forms of life, this spontaneity is the result of internal causes, not external, mechanical push. While this idea may be questionable and inaccurate, it can still help guide our research on this science and help us to remove the concept of artificial design that so stubbornly plagues our minds. The idea of ​​

was introduced to France through Espinas. Espinas's "Animal Society" (Sociétés animales) first leaves us with the impression that society will be born, survive and die, and is organized according to the animal pattern - so sociology is a branch of biology . But Espinas adjusted and pushed it towards psychology in the process of deepening Spencer's thoughts. If society is an organism, then what distinguishes society itself from other purely physical organisms is that it is essentially conscious. Society is nothing but a manifestation system.When people say that society is a living object (vivants), it is not able to fully portray its characteristics. It also needs to be added that "society is a living consciousness, an organism of concepts" (consciences vivants, des organisms d’idées). Indeed, sociology is rooted in biology, but from the moment sociology really becomes sociology, it is different from biology: representations are different from mechanical movement. social consciousness is essentially no different from individual consciousness. Individuals are also the product of the combination of many basic consciousnesses, which are the appearance or impression of a few clear self. Therefore, like social consciousness, individual consciousness is also a "tout de coalitin". The difference between social consciousness and individual consciousness is that the differences between those integrated elements (des éléments integrals) are more obvious in society than in individuals. But in either case, these elements are equally true. "individual self" (moi), in fact, is "one us" (un nous). This allows us to understand why the "social us" (le nous social) can be understood as an ego (un moi). In this way, sociology and psychology are like two branches of biology, which forked at a specific point, but always maintain a parallel relationship in their development. They are all grouped and organized appearances, emotions and impulses. In this way, it is better to define the object of sociology than the biological analogy that Spencer satisfies. The reason why society can be compared to life is that society is an organic being, but institutional creation (l’ organisation) [6] is just an external framework of social life. Therefore, it is important to create for ourselves the representation of what is contained in social life. When Espinas points out to us that society is an idea organism (organismes d’idées), it is this manifestation he provides to us. Espinas accurately used the method introduced to him by Fouillée when comparing the institutionalized sociality to those observed in individuals, but ignored the differences between the two facts. But this analogy, if not only understood literally, will at least help make everything real in social life perceptible, because it reminds the individual's life and points out what the nature of this reality is - a psychological order, and the primary goal of sociology is to study how collective representations are formed and combined.

"Animal Society" cover

In this way, the concept of sociology was gradually established and defined. However, it is impossible for us not to feel this: the concept of social facts is still to some extent general and synoptic. All possible analogies between organisms and society, between individual consciousness and collective consciousness, cannot provide us with the minimum law (la moindre loi) . This analogy is just a preparatory procedure used by science in the age of heroes, and science must gradually get rid of them. Until then, sociologists simplified science into a single problem that was all-encompassing, such as progress, evolution, the question of which social existence is most like, and so on. It is time to deal with social facts directly, that is, to explore their particularity in order to diversify the questions about them, thereby defining these social facts, and applying methods directly applicable to the particular nature of collective things to these social facts.

We are serious about this task. We no longer consider sociology in the general sense, but instead focus on methodically limiting ourselves to a very limited order of fact: except for those areas that are necessary to explore and are adjacent to our research, we have always focused only on legal or moral codes.We either study their origins or developments with the aid of comparative history and ethnography, [7] or study their functions with the aid of statistics. [8] Even within this limited range, we are increasingly focusing on several limited issues. In short, we have always been committed to pioneering the era of specialization, which Comte might call it, in French sociology. Specialization such as

is even more indispensable. Because, for a long time, many specialized disciplines have been formed outside sociology, and some disciplines are even older than sociology, which study different orders of social phenomena. Among them are studies on comparative historiography of law and religion, demographics and political economy. Because these studies are so far away from sociological influences, they are largely lacking in goals. Because these disciplines ignore the nature of these phenomena, that is, sociality, when they study these phenomena, they do not know where these social phenomena come from or where they will develop, and what environment they depend on, thus putting social phenomena in a vacuum and unable to explain them. These phenomena can only be explained and expressed only by putting them back into the collective environment associated with them. And, these studies often originate from literature and erudition rather than science, so these works often lack the concept of law. Therefore, many studies related to social phenomena are presented to us in the form of the following: on the one hand, although these studies have the same object of study, they are nothing but a group of science or quasi-sciences that lack consistency, and do not realize their connection, nor understand the profound unity of the facts they are studying, but only vaguely feel the rationality of these facts; on the other hand, although sociology, although they are aware of their unity, is so overriding the facts that it has little effect on other studies. Therefore, the most urgent reform of is to implement sociological concepts into these specific research techniques, and to transform them by truly building these research into social sciences. Only in this way can sociology be no longer an abstract metaphysics , and those expert works are no longer monographs that have no connection with each other and lack the value of explanation. [9]

But this professional research requires a method that corresponds to the complexity of the things that gave birth to this science. The general procedure that Comte satisfies with to deal with general problems is not sufficient to solve these special problems. That method has false marks and is detrimental to his sociology. For these reasons, the methodological issues need to be reviewed again. This is also the best way to criticize the various prejudices that oppose the progress of our discipline. It is in this spirit that we have written the "Guidelines of Sociological Methods". Of course, if the logician did not practice this science personally, the scientific logic he gave was worthless. Nothing is more futile than the abstract discourse of some philosophers, who create sociological methods all day long but never deal with social facts. Furthermore, only by testing ourselves in a certain number of studies and being fully proved, can we dare to transform them into technical rules created for ourselves. The research methods we propose are just a summary of our practical experience.

"Guidelines for Sociological Methods" Chinese version cover

For this research method, if some detailed rules are omitted, it is based on the following two assumptions as a whole: 1. The existence of social facts is a self-category; they have their own nature. There really is a social field, which is different from the psychological field, which comes from the field of biology, which comes from the field of inorganics . There is no doubt that collective life is composed only of representations, while collective representations are composed of individual representations, because society is composed of individuals. But the collective representation presents special characteristics, which are not available to individual representations.The synthesis from which collective representations are produced is a chemical synthesis (synthèses chimiques). If the elements that make up this synthesis are still isolated, then the characteristics developed by this synthesis are unimaginable. Consciences particulieres create a new reality through union, action and reaction, and fusion - that is, social consciousness. The mind of the group does not come from the mind of the individual, it is precisely because it presupposes a collection of many bodies (précisément parce que la première suppose une pluralité d’esprits particuliers, combined ensemble). A collective has its own way of thinking and perception, and individual members obey this way of thinking and perception. But this collective existence is different from what collective members create themselves. An individual can never be able to create concepts such as gods, myths and religious teachings on himself, nor can he create concepts such as obligations and moral laws. This shows that these beliefs and practices are not simply extensions of individual concepts, which have some ascendant status and impose them on the individual. This proves that they do not originate from the individual, but come from an external and above the individual source. This is why we emphasize the dominance of social phenomena. Therefore, the method of studying these social phenomena must not be copied from other scientific methods, but must be a strict sociological method.

2, but for this reason, sociological research must be objective. Just like studying other natural phenomena, social facts must be studied from the outside. Anthropocentric perspective is not as deeply rooted in sociology in other natural sciences. When people believe that social evolution is just a gradual realization of a certain concept held by each individual (such as the concept of humanity envisioned by Comte and the concept of cooperation as Spencer), then to build such a science, people only need to return to themselves, understand this basic concept, and further derive all the content it contains based on it. From this point of view, considerations of facts are only secondary; they can be used to illustrate reasoning, but are not the most fundamental as evidence. But if social phenomena are not the product of isolated individuals, if these phenomena originate from a unity—the individual is undoubtedly involved in this unity, but other things are involved in it—then in order to understand what this synthesis is composed of and what the role of this synthesis process has, scholars must observe. Because these processes all happen outside of him. He must face these things in the same state of mind as physicists and chemists when facing physical and chemical phenomena. That is, he must regard these phenomena as the product of some unknown force, rather than the expression of personal ideas or emotions. Exploring the nature and pattern of these synthetics is a matter that remains to be decided. In this regard, this method is naturalistic, because the mental attitude it stipulates for sociology is the norm of natural science. But it is not the naturalism in the usual literal sense, because it does not intend to incorporate the social sphere into other natural spheres, but rather, it requires sociology to maintain its uniqueness, and the naturalism it practices is sociological in nature.

All previous theories are like different stages of a single evolutionary process. In fact, they all originate from the same idea—that is, social phenomena are as rational as other phenomena in the universe. By this we simply say that these phenomena are linked to each other based on some clear relationship called laws. At the same time, all the scholars mentioned above feel that to reveal these laws, they must adopt an empirical approach - replacing the generalized, conceptual dialectical procedure with patient observation of facts. However, we need to discuss the kind of research that is completely opposite to the above-mentioned research in terms of direction, which constitutes a reaction to science in a sense. What we are talking about is Tard's research.

Faced with the achievements that have been obtained in comparing institutional history, no one will deny the possibility of scientific research on society. Tard himself wanted to create a sociology, too. It is just that his way of conceiving sociology is not enough to make it a science in a strict sense, but will only become a special form of thinking, in which imagination plays a main role, and thinking activities are no longer subject to norms that provide evidence and control facts. Now, no one will argue that there is no order in various social phenomena; but people will still think that social phenomena are so uncertain and full of incomprehensible accidents that it is almost difficult to form a unified view of such unclear—that is, intangible—realistic—and that a well-defined concept does not seem to express such ups and downs and impermanence.

Tard (1843-1904)

For Tard, social facts are actually the product of individual inventions and can be spread through imitation. Every belief, like every practice, has an original concept, which arises from the mind of a certain individual. There are thousands of such individual inventions every day. Although most of them died prematurely, a small number succeeded. They are adopted by other members of society, either because they seem useful, or because the inventor is given some special authority, thus passing on to everything that comes from him. Once this invention becomes universal, it is no longer an individual phenomenon, but a collective phenomenon. According to Tarder, there is no science about invention. Because the invention is only attributed to the inventor; and that inventor, genius, is the "greatest accident" (l’ accident suprême), the product of pure opportunity. As long as these two basic fertility elements "can be met without mutual understanding and recognition from people who are far away, and match each other without conscious choice, and from this blind and random pairing, those few extremely smart minds that constitute the source of all discoveries and inventions... Then it can be said that they accidentally play an incomparable role in sociology" [10].

Undoubtedly, once a genius appears, people can explore the reason for the mental combination of genius creating new ideas. Tard called it "the law of invention." But the essential element of every innovation is the outstanding genius himself and his creative nature, and this is entirely due to luck. On the other hand, since the mysterious source of "society overflow" (du fleuve social, p.172) lies in genius, chances become the root of social phenomena. There is no absolute necessity, which leads to a certain belief or system that should only appear in a certain historical moment or a decisive social environment. Therefore, since chances allow innovators to appear at some point sooner or later, the same idea may take centuries to develop or explode in an instant. Furthermore, (if innovations are as Tarder said, then) a whole class of inventions are required to be inherited in a random order; they are not contradictory, but assist each other. Even if “because of communication, they appear in the same order in two different countries, their subsequent development in completely opposite orders is always conceivable and always possible” (p.181). There is no doubt that it is wrong to think that they do not follow any particular order, but it is equally wrong to think that they obey an unchanging, even the only standard order (ordre normal) (p.162). In order to match his principles, Tarder used the entire book to prove that the evolution of justice actually presents the most unexpected strangeness in his "Changes of Law" (Les Transformations du droit). In contrast to comparative legal history, he tried to establish such statements: families can easily originate from promiscuity, or they can easily originate from monogamy; matriarchy is not an inevitable stage of historical development; etc.Comte successfully introduced into the realm of social phenomena, and his successors tried to further concretize and consolidate the concept of law, which was blurred and obscured here in Tarder. Caprice is also allowed to enter the mind because it is (believed) discovered in things.

The comments on the above system in this article must be incomplete. We have to limit ourselves to those moments that we think represent more or less important in the development of sociology. We did not select works that are important at least in the material dimension, such as the study of Letourneau. The extensive research he published on family evolution, legal evolution, property evolution, education evolution and literature evolution witnessed his hard work in these aspects. Sometimes some useful information can be found in these works. But in his research, facts are often piled up in confusion, that is, lack of systematicity, especially uncriticality. These facts are put there just for some oversimplified concepts. More importantly, all these works have no obvious influence on contemporary thought. We also did not deal with Lapouge and his sociology of anthropo-sociologie for other reasons. First, we doubt whether this school has a place in the history of sociology development, because its purpose is to dissolve sociology in anthropology. Secondly, as Manouvrier recently pointed out to us, the scientific basis on which this school of thought depends is questionable. [11]

But even considering these theories, this list of the theories can only give a rough view on French sociology over the past few years. We cannot discuss the debates about these theories or related issues, as well as the large number of books and articles that have been brought about. We can only be satisfied with listing these works: Dumont's "Population and Civilization" (La Dépopulation et civlisation), Richard's "Origin of Legal Ideae du droit), Worms's "Organism and Society" (, Coste's "Objective Sociology" (La Sociologie objective), Bouglé's "The Concept of Equality" (Les Idées égalitaires), Bernès's "Social Methods" (La Méthode sociologique), etc. The prolificity of sociological works is due to the general curiosity that these institutes have recently aroused. However, less than fifteen years ago, the word "sociology" was hardly used, and sociological research itself was branded with an untrustworthy mark. Today, everyone talks about "sociology" and even it is overused, and sociological research itself has become very common. All eyes were staring at this new science and putting too much hope on it. In this way, a sanity movement was produced at the end of the century, which was exactly like the one we saw at the beginning of this century, and for the same reason. People will undoubtedly find that this is reasonable, that is, life is a little noisy and wastes our energy for no reason. But, after all, this is life. If it is disciplined and standardized, if the aroused passions are classified and organized in an orderly manner, rather than spreading unorganized, if everyone is devoted to a clear task, then we may allow ourselves to have such hope for the current sanity movement, hoping that it can be brilliant in the history of concepts in the general sense and the history of sociology in the special sense.

In addition, all aspects are destined to play an important role in the development of this science. Two reasons determine the emergence of sociology and then contribute to its development. The first factor is that it has been very obvious that the weakening of traditionalism. Wherever they are, when religious, political and legal traditions maintain their rigidity and authority, they suppress all tendencies to change and thus prevent the awakening of reflection; when people are driven to believe that things should remain in their current state, there is no reason for people to care about what they should be and what they are like. The second factor may be called the rationalist state of the mind. Although in the field of social facts, various events often seem to be exempt from scientific regulations due to their complexity, we must have confidence in the ability of reason and thus dare to put social facts under their laws. France now meets these two conditions to the greatest extent. Of all European countries, France uprooted the old social organizations the most thoroughly; we created a whiteboard and had to build a brand new building on this open space. For centuries, we have always felt the urgency of these causes, but we have always carried it up and let it go, and it has rarely been promoted compared to the era of the Great Revolution. On the other hand, whatever we do, we are, and still are, Descartes' kingdom: we are uncontrollably going to trace things back to clear concepts. There is no doubt that Cartesianism is an outdated, narrow rationalism that we must never rely on. But if transcending Cartesianism is important, then the principle of retaining it is even more important. We must adapt ourselves to more complex ways of thinking, but retain the worship of clear ideas, because this is the foundation of the French spirit and the foundation of all sciences.

Rene Descartes (1596-1650)

However, even if it is hoped to be legal, the danger is huge. We are going through a special critical period. Our science bears great expectations, so it will be disreputable if it fails to deliver on its promises. If this hustle and bustle are fruitless, then public opinions will be quickly bored, retreated, and lose interest. Furthermore, the stagnation of reason that happened in the middle of this century - it is a disaster for reason and will revive again. There is no doubt that we can never curb science for too long, and it will be completed sooner or later. But no matter how short its frustration is, we should try our best to avoid this, because this frustration is at least a useless waste of time. Attacks on science can procrastinate problems well, but they cannot solve them. When these problems are raised and everything starts again, the moment to solve them will eventually come. █

comments and references:

*《Collected Works of Durkheim (X), Commercial Press 2020, originally published on Revue bleue 12,190, pp. 609-613,647-652, and included in La Science sociale et l’action, introduction and presentation by J. -C. Filloux. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1970.

Chinese translation is based on reference to French, and translated from the following English translation: "Sociology in France in the Nineteenth Century," in Émile Durkheim: On Morality and Society, translated by Mark Traugott. Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1973.

English translator re-divided the chapters of this article based on his own understanding and added the corresponding title. The Chinese translation of paragraphs is chosen to follow the original French text.——Chinese translation notes

[1]Social Physiology, vol.10 of Complete Works, p.177.

[2]Ibid.

[3]The Organiser, vol. 4, p. 119.

[4](The) Science of Man, vol. 11, p. 187.

[5]Ibid.

[6] The Chinese translation is difficult to convey the meanings of "organization", such as "organization", and "organization structure" that the word "organization" has at the same time. Please pay attention. ——Chinese translation note

[7] See "Social Division of Labor"; in the unpublished research, we also studied crime, punishment, responsibility and family forms from this perspective. For the last question, we have published some independent research articles, especially in "Incest Taboos and Its Origin", published in "Social Annals", Vol.

[8] See "Suicide Theory" (Paris, 1897).

[9] Based on this view, we have specifically elaborated and developed in the first, second and third volumes of the "Social Annals".

[10]Social Logic, pp. 166-167.

[11] As for Le Play and his theoretical system, we did not discuss it. Because he basically focuses on practical issues rather than theoretical issues, and also because he holds a fundamental religious prejudice. A doctrine that takes the Pentateuch as a criterion has nothing to do with science. However, we must also point out that this school has recently tended to develop towards more stringent scientific research. This tendency is reflected in the Social Sciences written by Demolins.