Gabriel Tarde

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Gabriel Tarde (French: [tad]; in full Jean-Gabriel De Tarde;[2] 12 March 1843 13 May 1904)
was a French sociologist, criminologist and social psychologistwho conceived sociology as
based on small psychological interactions among individuals (much as if it were chemistry), the
fundamental forces beingimitation and innovation.
Tarde was born in Sarlat in the province of Dordogne, and he studied law in Toulouse and
Paris. From 1869 to 1894 he worked as a magistrate and investigating judge in the province. In
the 1880s he corresponded with representatives of the newly formed criminal anthropology,
most notably the italians Enrico Ferri and Cesare Lombroso and the French
psychiatristAlexandre Lacassagne. With the latter, Tarde came to be the leading representative
for a "French school" in criminology. In 1900 he was appointed professor in modern philosophy
at the Collge de France. As such he was the most prominent contemporary critic of
Durkheim's sociology.
Contents
[hide]

1 Theory
o

1.1 Criminology

1.2 Imitation

2 Science Fiction

3 Influence

4 Works

5 See also

6 Notes

7 References

8 Further reading

9 External links

Theory[edit]
Among the concepts that Tarde initiated were the group mind (taken up and developed
by Gustave Le Bon, and sometimes advanced to explain so-called herd behaviour or crowd
psychology), and economic psychology, where he anticipated a number of modern
developments.Tarde was very critical of mile Durkheims work at the level of both
methodology and theory.[3] However, Durkheim's sociology overshadowed Tarde's insights, and

it was not until U.S. scholars, such as theChicago school, took up his theories that they
became famous.[4]

Criminology[edit]
Tarde took an interest in criminology and the psychological basis of criminal behavior while
working as a magistrate in public service. He was critical of the concept of the atavistic
criminal as developed by Cesare Lombroso. Tarde's criminological studies served as
the underpinning of his later sociology.[1]
Tarde also emphasised the tendency of the criminal to return to the scene of the crime and to
repeat it, which he saw as part of a wider process of repetition compulsion.[5]

Imitation[edit]
Tarde considered imitation, conscious and unconscious, as a fundamental interpersonal trait,
with the imitation of fathers by sons as the primal situation, resting on prestige. [6]
Tarde highlighted the importance of the creative exemplar in society, arguing that "genius is the
capacity to engender one's own progeny".[7]

Science Fiction[edit]
Tarde also wrote a science-fiction novel entitled Underground Man. The plot is a postapocalyptic story of an Earth destroyed by a new Ice Age. Humanity must rebuild a new
civilization underground. The choice is made to lay the foundation of their utopia on music and
art.

Influence[edit]

Sigmund Freud built on Tarde's ideas of imitation and suggestion for his work on the
theory of the crowd.[8]

Everett Rogers furthered Tarde's "laws of imitation" in the 1962 book Diffusion of
innovations.

From the late 1990s and continuing today, Tarde's work has been experiencing a
renaissance.[9] Spurred by the re-release of his essay Monadologie et Sociologie by Institut
Synthelabo under the guidance of Gilles Deleuze's studentEric Alliez, Tarde's work is being
re-discovered as a harbinger of postmodern French theory, particularly as influenced by
the social philosophers Gilles Deleuze and Flix Guattari.

For example, it has recently been revealed that in Difference and Repetition, Deleuze's
milestone book which effected his transition to a more socially-aware brand of philosophy and
his writing partnership with Guattari, Deleuze in fact re-centered his philosophical orientation
around Tarde's thesis that repetition serves difference rather than vice versa. [10] Also on the
heels of the re-release of Tarde's works has come an important development in which French
sociologist Bruno Latour has referred to Tarde as a possible predecessor to Actor-Network
Theory in part because of Tarde's criticisms of Durkheim's conceptions of the Social. [2]
A book, The Social after Gabriel Tarde: Debates and Assessments, edited by Matei Candea,
was published by Routledge in 2010. It provides a set of mature critiques of the recent
renaissance of Tarde as well as to suggest models for scholars to use Tarde's thought in their
scholarship. This book includes contributions that philosophically reflect
the Latourian (including a contribution from Latour himself) as well as Deleuzian approaches to

Tarde, and also highlight a number of new ways Tarde is being adapted in terms of methods in
contemporary sociology, particularly in the area of ethnography, and the study of online
communities. Additionally, in 2010, Bruno Latour and Vincent Antonin Lepinay released a short
book calledThe Science of Passionate Interests: An Introduction to Gabriel Tarde's Economic
Anthropology, in which they show how Tarde's work offers a strong critique of the foundations
of the economics discipline and economic methodology.

Works[edit]

La criminalit compare (1886)

La philosophie pnale (1890) - Translated by Rapelje Howell and published as Penal

Philosophy in 1968

Les lois de l'imitation (1890)- Translated by Elsie Clews Parsons in 1903 and published
as The Laws of Imitation

Les transformations du droit. tude sociologique (1891)

Monadologie et sociologie (1893)

La logique sociale (1895)

Fragment d'histoire future (1896)

Lopposition universelle. Essai d'une thorie des contraires. (1897)

crits de psychologie sociale (1898)

Les lois sociales. Esquisse d'une sociologie (1898) - Translated to English by Howard
C Warren and published in 1899 as Social Laws - an Outline of Sociology

L'opinion et la foule (1901)

La psychologie conomique (19023)

Fragment d'histoire future (1904) Translated by Cloudesley