Monadology and Sociology

by Gabriel Tarde, Theo Lorenc (Translator)

Les monades de Leibniz ont fait du chemin depuis leur père. Par diverses voies indépendantes elles se glissent, à l'insu des savants eux-mêmes, dans le coeur de la science contemporaine. Il est remarquable que toutes les hypothèses secondaires impliquées dans cette grande hypothèse en ce qu'elle a d'essentiel, sinon de leibnizien, sont en train d'être établies scientifiquement. Elle implique, en effet, d'abord la réduction à une seule de ces deux entités, la matière et l'esprit, confondues dans la seconde, et en même temps la multiplication prodigieuse des agents tout spirituels du monde.

Genres: Philosophy, Sociology

102 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1893

About the author

Jean-Gabriel de Tarde, writing as Gabriel Tarde was a French sociologist, criminologist and social psychologist.

Reviews

[Aung Sett Kyaw Min]

for some reason it took me about two weeks to warm up to Tarde's style and presentation. i picked up this book immediately after finishing Discourse on Metaphysics + On Monadology. ive been reading this dense little treatise in between breakfast and lunch, working on a few pages at a time, and basically absorbing nothing of substance. but one night i decided to dig through the rest of it in one go. in retrospect i must say i've never felt more intellectually rewarded to have finished a book!

MS is a fascinating and ambitious reworking of leibnizian monadology towards a pansociology. tarde seeks to revitalize the non human world by sociologizing it, that is, by ascribing belief and desire to the elements (e.g. atoms, although it's actually relations goes all the way) which compose the macroscopic order. in a strong sense, elements are simply relations. elements may be apparently stable and homogeneous, but their homogeneity effaces the fact that they are an assemblage of monads with internal differences and aspects that are not subordinated to the hegemonic monad. it all starts with difference and culminates in difference (identity empirically, logically and ontologically presupposes difference).

if you're not already familiarity with at least some leibnizian metaphysics, the short two essays Discourse on Metaphysics and On Monadology should suffice.

[Sarah Fogel]

so fire

[Massimo Atracco]

Interesante, aunque creo que en el texto principal (que, por cierto, poco o nada tiene que ver con Leibniz y la monadología) Tarde divaga demasiado. Al final acaba siendo una obtusa introducción a sus ideas filosóficas y sociológicas, las cuales intenta vincular con los últimos avances de la ciencia de su tiempo (podría partir del fragmento de La individuación a la luz de las nociones de forma e información para explicar por qué no aportan mucho todas estas referencias al desarrollo de la tesis de Tarde, pero me da palo). Como mucho es interesante porque muestra que cuánto más indagas en otras figuras más olvidadas de la filosofía francesa menos originales te resultan todos estos pensadores de la diferencia de la segunda mitad del siglo XX. Empero, he de decir que el concepto de diferencia que esboza Tarde aquí es ambiguo de cojones. Sus reflexiones sobre la creencia y el deseo son más estimulantes, y sobre todo me gusta esa reformulación de que mi yo no se entiende por lo que soy, sino por lo que tengo. El apéndice está muy bien. En este caso sí que es un texto explícitamente leibniziano, y me gusta que concretamente se meta en el tema de la armonía establecida y el principio de razón suficiente, las partes más interesantes del pensamiento de Leibniz para mí.

Está bien, pero no es ni de lejos la mejor opción para introducirse al autor. A nivel de edición he de decir que, aunque se entienda sin problema, me parece un poco cutre traducirlo de una edición portuguesa pudiendo haber recurrido al texto original en francés.

[Grrm]

"To exist is to differ" is one of the main thoughts. Despite the monadology and the search for evidence of this theory in the scientific throwings of its time, in reality, it comes down to a more abstract category of difference. Singularity or difference - these are the starting point options for Tarde. No less funny is his rejection of ideologues on the other side of the Rhine (the old empty pap of Teutonic ideologues - in the English version) - his opposition to the opposition (being and non-being, ego and non-ego), the Absolute is unacceptable - acceptable becoming and disappearance, acceptable a fan of options that are REALLY DIFFERENT. At the same time, choosing science, Tarde does not notice that his monadology itself is closer to philosophy, even if it is cleared of the processing of philosophy - which deprives it of charm - time did not accept Tarde as having made a breakthrough in the sociology and sociologization of science, but resurrected it as nomadologist, making an interesting figure for neonomadology and - possibly - those who will still prove themselves.

[lenanan]

o cara viaja

[Mehmet]

Gabriel de Tarde'ın yazılış açısından karışık ama taşıdığı fikirler açısından hacmine oranla dolu bir kitap.

"var olmak farklılaşmaktır."

[Özdal Tavşanlı]

Tarde not agree with Comte in analyzing to the infinitely small rather than to monads.