Gabriel Tarde on Technology, Politics, and the Crowd
Synopsis
Gabriel Tarde (1843-1904) was a pivotal yet often underappreciated figure in nineteenth-century French sociology. Positioned alongside contemporaries such as Auguste Comte, Frédéric Le Play, and Émile Durkheim, Tarde distinguished himself through his empirical rigor and theoretical originality. While Comte emphasized positivism and Durkheim the primacy of social facts, Tarde foregrounded the significance of individual psychological processes and micro-level interactions as foundational to social life. Tarde occupies a significant yet often overlooked position within the canon of classical sociology. He contributed profoundly to the development of sociological theory in nineteenth-century France, but, unlike his more widely recognized contemporaries, he has remained relatively marginalized in the sociological discourse. This, of course, does not diminish the analytical value of his work. For specialists across the social sciences, engaging with Tarde’s writings remains an intellectually enriching endeavor, demonstrating the intellectual agility that the French term esprit d’athlète aptly captures.
Chapters
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Introduction Gabriel Tarde: A reappraisal of his contributions to Sociology
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Gabriel de Tarde between Political Economy and Sociology
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Byzantinism and the laws of imitation
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Philosophical and mathematical investigation of similar phenomena in the context of an increased complexity
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Tarde and Simmel on ‘assembling the social’: Society, life, things
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Affective imitation or imitative affect. Gabriel Tarde’s mechanism of belief and desire
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Joseph Schumpeter and Gabriel Tarde on technological change and social evolution
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Innovative Technologies and Social Transformations: discussing repetition, imitation, and similitude after G. de Tarde
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Tarde on the road: Monadology and Sociology and the contemporary analyses of mobility
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Monadological ontologies after Spinoza: Leibniz, Hegel, Stirner, McTaggart, Tarde, and Weil
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A society of monads? Revisiting Tarde’s main epistemological argument
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Tarde’s heritage and the biographical method in social research: the case of migration
- Gabriel Tarde on Technology, Politics, and the Crowd Gabriel Tarde on Technology, Politics, and the Crowd
- Preface Preface
- Introduction Gabriel Tarde: A reappraisal of his contributions to Sociology Introduction Gabriel Tarde: A reappraisal of his contributions to Sociology
- 01 Gabriel de Tarde between Political Economy and Sociology 01 Gabriel de Tarde between Political Economy and Sociology
- 02 Byzantinism and the laws of imitation 02 Byzantinism and the laws of imitation
- 03 Philosophical and mathematical investigation of similar phenomena in the context of an increased complexity 03 Philosophical and mathematical investigation of similar phenomena in the context of an increased complexity
- 04 Tarde and Simmel on ‘assembling the social’: Society, life, things 04 Tarde and Simmel on ‘assembling the social’: Society, life, things
- 05 Affective imitation or imitative affect. Gabriel Tarde’s mechanism of belief and desire 05 Affective imitation or imitative affect. Gabriel Tarde’s mechanism of belief and desire
- 06 Joseph Schumpeter and Gabriel Tarde on technological change 06 Joseph Schumpeter and Gabriel Tarde on technological change
- 07 Innovative technologies and social transformations: Discussing repetition, imitation, and similitude after G. de Tarde 07 Innovative technologies and social transformations: Discussing repetition, imitation, and similitude after G. de Tarde
- 08 Tarde on the road: Monadology and Sociology and the contemporary analyses of mobility 08 Tarde on the road: Monadology and Sociology and the contemporary analyses of mobility
- 09 Monadological ontologies after Spinoza Leibniz, Hegel, Stirner, McTaggart, Tarde, and Weil 09 Monadological ontologies after Spinoza Leibniz, Hegel, Stirner, McTaggart, Tarde, and Weil
- 10 A society of monads? Revisiting Tarde’s main epistemological argument 10 A society of monads? Revisiting Tarde’s main epistemological argument
- 11 Tarde’s heritage and the biographical method in social research: The case of migration 11 Tarde’s heritage and the biographical method in social research: The case of migration
- Index Index
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