This text is the setup for a Tardean/Latourian sociology of mathematics. In a later stage, I will apply this thought experiment to analyse how a Tardean sociology of mathematics would look like, and how mathematicians could benefit from a such a reflective analysis of mathematics.

A TARDEAN SOCIOLOGY (OF MATHEMATICS)

abstract

Despite being an influential scholar at the end of the 19th century, the sociological ideas of Gabriel (de) Tarde are nowadays largely forgotten. In this essay, we want to regenerate interest in the sociological writings of Tarde. We want to stress here the sociological weight of some his works, and imagine what sociology would look like if not Durkheim’s, but Tarde’s insights had been turned into science. If nothing more, a Tardean sociology could have been a perfect counterweight for Durkheim and rescued us from some of the pitfalls mainstream sociology has guided us towards.

content

i. introduction

ii. sociology as a point of view

iii. monads and psychomorphism

iv. panvitalism of the infinitesimal

v. against the society-as-an-organism metaphor

vi. small is beautiful

vii. how different are human societies?

viii. the sociologist’ ? faire

ix. summary

i. introduction

As mentioned by Bruno Latour in Gabriel Tarde, and the End of the Social (2001), Gabriel (de) Tarde was a major figure in French sociology at the turn of the 19th century; he was professor at the Coll?ge de France and the author of innumerable books. At that same moment in time, Durkheim was a much younger, upstart teacher in the province, and a less successful figure in sociology.
A few years later however, the situation has been completely reversed. It is now Durkheim who has become the main spokesman and representative of the scientific discipline of sociology, while Tarde finds himself evacuated in the prestigious but irrelevant position of mere ’precursor.’ To make matters worse, Tarde is by then considered as a rather bad precursor, forever branded with the sin of ’psychologism’ and ’spiritualism.’

Since then, mainstream sociology or, more general, social theory led by the official Sorbonne has never tired of ridiculing Tarde’s achievement (Cfr Denis Touret in http://www.denistouret.net/ideologues/Tarde.html) Consequently, it bears little or no surprise that the posthumous influence of Tarde on mainstream sociology has been rather small in France and the rest of Europe, neglectable in fact when one compares it with the influence Durkheim has had over the years. Ask any European sociologist what he or she knows about Gabriel Tarde; chances are big that (s)he will answer you: "Who?"
Strangely enough, as Touret observes, Tarde’s ideas have travelled overseas and found firmer ground the other side of the Atlantic Ocean. Americans like James Mark Baldwin (1861-1934, founder of the American Journal of Psychology) and Edward Alsworth Ross (1866-1951, one of the founders of American sociology, who we like to remember for "There may come a time in the career of every sociologist when it is his solemn duty to raise hell.") were keen on referring to Tarde, and in Introduction to the Science of Sociology (1921), the authority for introductory courses in sociology in the years ’20 to ’40, Robert Park and Ernest Burgess consider Tarde equally important for the science of sociology as Emile Durkheim and George Simmel.
Despite the attention that some prominent American sociologists have given to Tarde, American sociology, even more than European sociology, has let Tarde fade ever since into a mere footnote.

Recently however, scholars as Gilles Deleuze, Bruno Latour and ?ric Alliez have begun to revisit Tarde and to develop several themes of the significance of Tarde’s insights, both sociological and others. (For an overview, see David Toews, 2003.) On Latour’s advice, we did the same - revisiting Tarde - and found his work so inspiring, that we want to use this essay to regenerate interest in his sociological writings, and highlight the significance of Tarde’s insights as a harbinger of a sociology of translation, a sociology we want to apply to the society of mathematics.
If sociologists do remember anything about Tarde’s oeuvre, it is likely to be Opinion et la foule (1901). However, despite the longevity of this work in terms of resonance with other scholars , three other texts by Tarde carry far more interesting sociological weight: Monadologie et sociologie (1893), La Logique Sociale (1895) and Les lois sociales. Esquisse d’une sociologie (1898).
Revisiting those three works, and especially Monadologie et Sociologie , we want to restore Gabriel Tarde’s status as an interesting sociologist, a counterweight, if nothing more, for the mainstream, Durkheimean, sociology. Let’s make the thought experiment and imagine what contemporary sociology could look like, if it had not been based on the dull and restraining insights of Durkheim, but on the riveting and thought provoking sociological insights of Tarde. I hope Latour is right when he argues:

"… maybe it is that Tarde, a truly daring but also, I have to admit, totally undisciplined mind, needed a rather different century so as to be finally understood. It could be argued that a thinker of networks before their time could not transform his intuitions into data, because the material world he was interested in was not there yet to provide him with any empirical grasp. Things are different now that the technological networks are in place and that many of the arguments of Tarde can be turn into sound empirical use." (2001:??)

The most striking feature of the sociological writing of Tarde is the way he defines sociology, and demarcates it from other forms of knowledge. Tarde defines sociology much less in terms of a (reified) subject matter, ’the social’, but in terms of a point of view (point de vue), a research agenda, a way of looking, approaching, analysing and articulating things that is fruitful and instrumental in our quest for understanding. Defining sociology first and foremost as a point of view leads us to believe that Tarde, at the end of the 19th century, already noticed and considered as evident, what mainstream (Durkheimean) sociology has been so blatantly ignoring ever since: ’the social’ is in many ways the result of sociology, rather than it’s starting point, it’s subject matter or object of analysis. This is the first of many reasons why Tarde’s sociology can be considered a fruitful counterweight for mainstream sociology.
Off course, comprehensively and luckily so (much more than admittedly so), Tarde’s sociology is more than a mere point of view. That it why his sociological piece de r?sistance is called Monadologie et sociologie. His sociology goes hand in hand with his monadology, which means that it contains explicit metaphysical views, and his definition of sociology as a point of view co-exist with these views, as mentioned also by Bergson (1909):

"Tarde [les] d?duisait de certaines vues m?taphysiques profondes sur la nature de l’univers, des ?l?ments qui le composent et des actions que ces ?l?ments exercent les uns sur les autres." (800)

Tarde thus counters Durkheim’s foolish desire to establish sociology on a complete rupture with philosophy, ontology and metaphysics, and his sociological point of view connects with bold assumptions about the furniture of the world itself. In a time when some sociologists and philosophers are trying persistently from both sides of a yawning gap to bridge sociology with philosophy, epistemology, ontology and metaphysics, we discover to our dismay that sociologists had all this time in their midst a scholar who did not even allow a rupture between these forms of knowledge. If only sociologists would have listened a little more to Tarde, we would not have to spend energy bridging a gap that should not have been there in the first place! Yet some more counterweight for Durkheim and his followers.

First, I will present Tarde’s sociology as a point of view, along with his monadology, his panvitalism of the infinitely small, his articulation of human societies, and his articulation of science as a great case of such a human society. After this presentation, I will some implications for a tardean sociology of science, and apply these implications to a sociology of mathematics/mathematicians. By then, the usefulness of a reflective analysis mathematics/mathematicians in terms of a Tardean sociology should be clear for anyone involved in the practise of mathematics.

ii. sociology as a point of view

Right from the word ’Go’, any mainstream sociologist, or any modern scientist for that matter, reading Monadologie et sociologie is in for a big surprise, maybe even a shock. "Hypotheses fingo," says Tarde in the exergue, I feign, I assert hypotheses as if true. Tarde alludes off course to, and counters Newton’s "Hypotheses non fingo", I do not assert that any hypotheses are true, in his Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica (1687):

"I have not as yet been able to discover the reason for these properties of gravity from phenomena, and I do not feign hypotheses. For whatever is not deduced from the phenomena must be called a hypothesis; and hypotheses, whether metaphysical or physical, or based on occult qualities, or mechanical, have no place in experimental philosophy. In this philosophy particular propositions are inferred from the phenomena, and afterwards rendered general by induction." (Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy - find exact reference, cannot find it in the VUB library)

The monads, Tarde argues as a full-blood forefather of the sociology of translation, have come a long way since their father, Leibniz, and "… les monades leiniziennes … sont avant tout points de vue …"(19). Tarde does not start of with a well defined and neatly demarcated subject matter, ’the social’, that would function as the starting point, the object of analysis and the raison d’?tre of sociology. He starts with a point of view , monadology, a research agenda, a way of looking, approaching, analysing and articulating things. He defines sociology as "… notre point de vue lumineux par excellence …"(68) and wants to find out where that point of view can take us.
Shock and awe! One has to bear in mind that we are in time, the turn of the 19th century, when Durkheim, in a pathetically desperate attempt to lead sociology through Newton’s gates of positivist thinking into the kingdom of modern science, stresses the importance of direct observation to discover the laws of society:

"Or de telles inferences sont sans valeur, car si les lois de la vie se retrouvent dans la soci?t?, c’est sous des formes nouvelles et avec des caract?res sp?cifiques que l’analogie ne permet pas de conjoncturer et que l’on ne peut atteindre que par l’observation directe." (1898 : 1-2)

Tarde’s hypotheses fingo and his articulation of sociology as a point of view reminds us of Robert Kennedy’s famous words - "Some people see things as they are, and ask ’Why?’ I see things as they might be, and ask ’Why not?’"- and could not be any further from Durkheim’s desire for positivist direct observation of the influences of ’the social’ on our lives. In a period when any self-respecting sociologist would have wanted the recognition as a modern scientist, Tarde’s almost playful repugnance against this positivist obsession must have sound foolish. But Tarde wants to be outrageous, even to the risk of passing for raving mad. In those matters, he argues, the fear of ridicule would be the most anti-philosophical sentiment.

"Voyons d?s l’abord o? il doit nous mener. Soyons outranciers au risque de passer pour extravagants. En cette mati?re sp?cialement, la crainte du ridicule serait le plus antiphilosophique des sentiments. Aussi toutes les d?veloppements qui vont suivre auront-ils pour object de montrer le profond renouvellement que l’interpr?tation sociologique de toutes choses devra ou devrait faire subir ? tous les domaines de la connaissance."(65-66)

Let us not be afraid of ridicule, let us be outrageous and see where the application of a sociological point of view can take us:

"Je passe sur bien d’autres objections secondaires, que l’application du point de vue sociologique rencontre sur son chemin. Puisque, apr?s tout, le fond des choses nous est inaccessible ? la rigueur et que la n?cessit? de faire des hypoth?ses pour le p?n?trer s’impose ? nous, adoptons franchement celle-ci et poussons-la jusqu’au bout. Hypotheses fingo, dirai-je na?vement. "(65)

Strike one. Tarde hits hard right from the first gong, and we may want to regroup if we want to get past the opening round. Regrouping, recapitulating, because understanding this first hit is imperative if we want to capture everything he is about to say next. Tarde defines sociology, and demarcates it from other forms of knowledge, first and foremost in terms of a point of view, a way of looking at things, a way of articulating things and dealing with our experiences. Tarde does not start from a subject matter, ’the social’, that in a reified way would function as the starting point, the object of analysis and the raison d’?tre of sociology and demarcate it from other forms of knowledge. He encourages us to think as daringly as possible and see where the application of a sociological point of view can take us.
Moreover, this definition of sociology as a point of view illustrates Tarde’s refusal to follow Durkheim and establish sociology on a complete rupture with philosophy, epistemology, ontology and metaphysics. Long before overly diligent demarcations opened up a gap between the practice of science (for example sociology) and it’s reflective analysis, between science and philosophy, epistemology, ontology and metaphysics - a gap we are only beginning to bridge - Tarde goes straight at them and reclaims as his duty to connect social theory with bold assumptions about the furniture of the world itself. Tarde tracks back to Leibniz to label what he sees as the furniture of the world: monads.

iii. monads and psychomorphism

Monads are the furniture of the world. Monads are the stuff out of which the universe is built. But hold your material horses (if only for a while): Tarde defines monads in the first place, not as a material entity, but as an entity that is possessed with faith and desire. Faith and desire are the ultimate motivating forces of monads, and, by consequence, the forces that move all of the world, whether human beings in their human society, thoughts in a single, individual brain, or atoms in a chemical gas (all of which can be considered monads, all of which can be considered societies (cfr infra)):

"A mon avis, les deux ?tats de l’?me, ou plut?t les deux forces de l’?me appel?es croyance et d?sir, d’o? d?rivent l’affirmation et la volont?, pr?sentent ce caract?re ?minent et distinctif. "(45)

" … le d?sir et la croyance … sont les vents perp?tuels des temp?tes de l’histoire, les chutes d’eau qui font tourner les moulins des politiques."(50)

Faith and desire, there is nothing else. Rocks, raindrops, atoms and stars, they can all be characterised, articulated in the same way as human beings and human societies by faith and desire. They all have faith and desire just as we do.
This psychomorphism of Tarde has too often been (voluntarily) misunderstood in the orchestrated attack of mainstream, Durkheimean sociology to brand Tarde’s sociology with ’spiritualism’, ’psychologism’, or ’idealism.’ All of that, and many more ugly words, despite Tarde’s pre-emptive strike:

"On dira peut-?tre que ce psychomorphisme est une solution ais?e, mais d’autant plus illusoire, et que c’est un leurre de pr?tendre expliquer les ph?nom?nes vitaux physique, chimiques, par les faits psychologiques, tous plus complexes."(49)

Nothing could be further from the truth however. Yes, Tarde states that monads are not material entities only, and he articulates them in the first place by faith and desire, but Latour (2001) comes Tarde to the rescue and says it right, when he counters with:

"No spiritualism nor idealism to expect from this affirmation though, since monads are also completely materialist : they are guided by no superior goal, no grand design, no telos. Each of them, much like Richard Dawkins’s genes or Susan Blackmore memes, fights for its own privately envisioned goal." (2001:69)

Indeed, it is hard to imagine how anyone could brand Tarde with labels as spiritualism, psychologism or idealism, when Monadologie et sociologie has passages like this one:

"Insistons sur cette v?rit? capitale : on s’y achemine en remarquant que, dans chacun de ces grands m?canismes r?guliers, le m?canisme social, m?canisme vital, le m?canisme stellaire, le m?canisme mol?culaire, toutes les r?voltes internes qui finissent par les briser sont provoqu?es par une condition analogue : leurs ?l?ments composants, soldats de ces divers r?giments, incarnation temporaire de leurs lois, n’appartiennent jamais que par un c?t?s ?chappent, au monde qu’ils constituent. Ce monde n’existerait pas sans eux ; il a d’autres penchants, d’autres instincts qui lui viennent d’enr?gimentations diff?rentes ; d’autres enfin, par suite (nous allons voir la n?cessit? de cette cons?quence), qui lui viennent de son fonds, de lui-m?me, de la substance propre et fondamentale sur laquelle il peut s’appuyer pour lutter contre la puissance collective, plus vaste, mais moins profonde, dont il fait partie, et qui n’est q’un ?tre artificiel, compos? de c?t?s et de fa?ades d’?tres."(80)

We quote a length because the passage articulates more than only the material content of monads. For now however, it is important to put question marks at the relentless attacks of psychologism and spiritiualism. Every monad, says Tarde, consists of components, other monads, soldiers of their various regiments, that put the ’superior’ monad at a constant threat of decomposition. The constituent monads overspill the superior monad, they escape from the world they constitute, they revolt, resist, conspire and try to break down.
This material articulation of monads leads us right up to one of the most striking features of Tarde’s sociology: his panvitalim of the infinitely small.

(Somewhere else (find where), Tarde talks of imitation and power. Maybe this helps to articulate his materialist counter to attacks of spiritualism. Would add more flesh.
All of this, despite Tarde’s stress on desire and faith as:

"Mais, si j’admets la complexit? des sensations et la parfaite l?gitimit? de leur explication par des fatis physiologiques, je ne puis reconna?tre pareillement celle du d?sir et de la croyance. L’analyse ? mon avis ne mord pas sur ces notions irr?ductibles. Il y a une contradiction inaper?ue ? pr?tendre, d’une part, qu’un organisme est un m?canisme form? en vertu de lois purement m?caniques, et, d’autre part, que tous les ph?nom?nes de la vie mentale, y compris les deux ci-dessus nomm?s, sont de purs produits de l’organisation cr??s par elle et non existant avant elle. Si en effet l’?tre organis? n’est qu’une machine admirable, il doit en ?tre de cette machine-l? comme de toutes les autres, dans lesquelles non seulement nulle force nouvelle, mais nl produit m?me radicalement nouveau ne saurait ?tre cr?? par la vertu des plus merveilleux agencements de rouages. Une machine n’est qu’une distribution et un derection sp?ciale de forces pr?exitstantes qui la traversent sans s’alt?rer essentiellement."(49)

iv. panvitalism of the infinitesimal

However, instead of coming Tarde to the rescue and counter foolish, malevolent and uninformed attacks, let’s ignore those attacks for the time being, and follow Tarde to see where his sociology can take us. Let us come back to the psychomorphism of Tarde, and take one of it’s implications face value. If rocks, raindrops, atoms and stars can be articulated just as much as human beings by faith and desire, does this mean that all of them are/can be considered monads? Yes! Does this mean also that we can apply our sociological point of view not only to human societies, but also to rocks, raindrops, atoms and stars? Hell yeah!
Tarde calls this implication of his monadology panvitalism of the infinitely small (’panvitalisme de l’infinit?simal’), and it seems to us one of the most striking and defining characteristics of a Tardean sociology. Tarde starts off with this argument by Leibniz in his Monadologie (1701):

"Chaque portion de la mati?re peut ?tre con?ue comme un jardin plein de plantes et comme un ?tang plein de poissons. mais chaque rameau de la plante, chaque membre de l’animal, chaque goutte de ses humeurs est encore un tel jardin, un tel ?tang." (67-69 - Maybe quote the English version in Monadology and Other Philosophical Essays. Ed. and trans. P. and A.M. Schrecker. Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1965)

And draws it in his version of monadology to it’s logical conclusion, adapting the terminology to fit for his sociology :

"Mais cela suppose d’abord que toute chose est une soci?t?, que tout ph?nom?ne est un fait social."(58)

’Society’, Tarde argues, is a word that can be attributed to any association, and in stead of following Durkheim, treating social facts as things, Tarde argues afresh and convincingly that all things are societies and any phenomenon can be considered social fact.
Thus, star systems, atoms, and sand grains on the beach are all societies. Moreover, any the constituent parts of a society are societies in themselves. For example, the human body is a society of cells, the cell a society of chemicals and organelles, organic chemicals are societies of simpler molecules, and so on down as far as we can go:

"… ces ?l?ments derniers auxquels aboutit toute science, l’individu social, la cellule vivante, l’atome chimique, ne sont derniers qu’au regard de leur science particuli?re. Eux-m?mes sont compos?s."(36)

So both separate organisms, as the constituent parts of an organism can be considered societies. Star systems, atoms, sand grains, the human body, cells, organic chemicals, … they are all societies.

Consequently, since all of those organisms can be considered societies, it would be narrow-minded to reserve the sociological point of view for human societies. One can use sociology to look at, analyse and articulate many more societies such as star systems, atoms and sand grains, and one can apply it to ever more complex societies as human bodies, cells and organic chemicals. ANY organism can be studied by sociology, can be approached, looked at, articulated by the point of view, the research agenda that is sociology. Tarde, decennia ahead of any other scholar, captures the fruitfulness of considering everything and all things as societies, be it cellular societies, atomic societies or solar systems.

Ultimately then, all sciences seem destined to become branches of sociology:

"Toutes les sciences semblent destin?es ? devenir des branches de la sociologie."(58)

However, as Latour (2001) mentions, nothing extraordinary nor imperialistic here: this does not mean, as with Auguste Comte, that sociology has to occupy the throne to rule over the sciences, but simply that every science has to deal with assemblages of many interlocking monads, that every science has to consider the sociological way of looking at things, has to consider the societal aspects of the organism that particular science is studying.

So, Tarde’s idea is simply that the human society is just one of the many societies. The human society is just one of the many societies that can be articulated by the sociological point of view. Tarde argues that if there is something special in human society it is not be determined by any strong opposition with all the other types of aggregates and certainly not by some special sort of arbitrarily imposed symbolic order which will put it apart from mere matter. To be a society of monads is a totally general phenomenon. As mentioned earlier, it is the stuff out of which the world is made. There is nothing especially new, more complex, in the human society, on the contrary:

"Nous ne devons pas perdre de vue que, les soci?t?s cellulaires ?tant mille fois plus antiques que les soci?t?s humaines, l’inf?riorit? de celles-ci n’aurait rien de bien surprenant. "(63-64)

v. against the society-as-organism metaphor

One can imagine the bafflement of any mainstream sociologist by now reading between the lines. Still, for those not feeling any wetness yet, let us put it even more poignant, and articulate Tarde’s monadology and his panvitalisme of the infinitely small in even more explicit terms, recognizable for any sociologist. To stress how different the outlook of current sociology would have been if not Durkheim, but Tarde had won the battle for fatherhood, it suffices to note two things.

One, Tarde’s panvitalism of the infinitely small opposes the metaphor of society-as-organism. The metaphor of society-as-organism has been widespread in political and social theory ever since the Renaissance, and it is the metaphor on which mainstream, Durkheimean sociology, was and still is based. Instead of comparing human societies to biological organisms, Tarde had the simple and brilliant insight to turn the metaphor around. We should not compare human societies to biological organisms, he says, but compare all organisms (and inorganic entities as well, for that matter) to societies. Hence the previously mentioned idea that star systems, atoms, sand grains, the human body, cells, organic chemicals, … are as much societies as human societies are.
Two, hand in hand with this turnaround of the metaphor, Tarde refuses to take that individual, the human agent, as the basic, real stuff, out of which a society is made. A brain, a mind, a soul, a body is itself composed of myriad’s of ’little persons’, or actants, each of them endowed with faith and desire, and actively promoting one’s total version of the world. Hence the previously mentioned idea that the human body is a society of cells, the cell a society of chemicals and organelles, organic chemicals are societies of simpler molecules, and so on down as far as we can go.

Nothing we did not mention before; only in more explicit sociological terms, and with the objective of showing how a Tardean sociology, if nothing more, forms the perfect counterweight for a mainstream sociology that too often has reified ’the social,’ resulting in the dangerous idea of a social structure as a kind of higher-level entity and in a stubborn, short-minded focus on causal explanations that are grandiose and abstract, rather than real and concrete. The human society consists of humans, and those humans are societies in themselves. Too often, the social has become a neatly demarcated subject matter, functioning as starting point, the object of analysis and the raison d’?tre of sociology. It is exactly for reification that Tarde warns when he sees that too many sociologists tend too loose sight of the trees because of the woods:

"Volontiers m?me elle dirait avec Agassiz que, d?s le d?but, les arbres ont ?t? des for?ts, les abeilles des ruches, les hommes des nations."(39)

And sees it, consequently as his duty, to fight Durheim’s simple-minded focus on higher-level entities:

"Au m?me titre que les astres, que les individus vivants, que les maladies, que les radicaux chimiques, les nations ne sont que des entit?s longtemps prises pour des ?tres v?ritables dans les th?ories ambitieuses et st?riles des historiens dits philosophes. N’a-t-on pas assez r?p?t?, par exemple, que c’est une mesquinerie de chercher la cause d’une r?volution politique ou sociale dans l’influence marqu?e d’?crivains, d’hommes d’?tat, d’inventeurs de tous genres, et qu’elle a jailli spontan?ment du g?nie de la race, des entrailles du peuple, acteur anonyme et surhumain? Mais ce point de vue commode, qui consiste ? voir faussement la cr?ation d’un ?tre nouveau dans le ph?nom?ne, r?ellement neuf et impr?vu d’ailleurs, que la rencontre des vrais ?tres a suscit?, n’est bon qu’? titre provisoire."(36)

For Tarde, it makes no sense to look for explanations exclusively in terms of social laws and regulations, social norms, social impositions. Tarde doesn’t want anything to do with Goffmanian or Parsonian moves from face to face interactions to ’bigger’ social structure. He wants to apply the same method, the same point of view, the same research agenda to all levels - there are no levels anyway.
Why? Because the human society consists of humans, and those humans are societies in themselves. And because individuals are much more differentiated and complex than macro structures like nations.

vi. small is beautiful

You read it well: individuals are much more differentiated and complex than macro structures like nations. Some readers may have questions by now about Tarde’s argument that if there is something special in human society it is not be determined by any strong opposition with all the other types of aggregates and certainly not by some special sort of arbitrarily imposed symbolic order which will put it apart from mere matter. Surely, the human society differs from other societies, and shortly we will be showing the differences that Tarde sees.
First however, we want to add some more to the bafflement, by mentioning that Tarde does not only react against simple-minded focus on higher-level entities; in the same breath he argues that the lower-level entities are always richer in difference and complexity than their aggregates or that the superficial appearances that we observe from far away. The small is always also the most complex:

"L’atome, ? vrai dire, par suite du d?veloppement de ce point de vue, naturellement sugg?r? par la loi de Newton … cesse d’?tre un atome ; il est un milieu universel ou aspirant ? le devenir, un univers ? soi, non pas seulement, comme le voulait Leibniz, un microcosme, mais le cosmos tout entier conquis et absorb? par un seul ?tre."(57)

Tarde’s monadology leads to a (reversed) reductionist version of metaphysics, since the small, is not only more complex than the big, it also always holds the key to the understanding of the big:

"Ainsi, les produits d’un organisme inf?rieur seraient les facteurs d’une organisation sup?rieure!"(50)

Tarde thus seems to put as much, or more complexity at the basis of phenomena than at their summit. For Tarde, every monad is blessed with an infinite complexity, and it is only by analysing this complexity that what seems homogenous, will appear heterogeneous. In such a way that all similitudes will appear to be mere "… interm?diaires in?vitables entre les diversit?s ?l?mentaires."(73).
The last level of analysis can thus always be considered as a new monad. Tarde attacks this way the completely awkward, but very popular idea that evolution always goes from the simple to the complex.
Leibniz wrote already :

"… (la nature) fait entrer l’infini en tout ce qu’elle fait … tellement que le moindre grain de poussi?re contient un monde d’une infinit? de cr?atures."(1693:542)

And Tarde sums it up with this beautiful phrase:

"Au fond de chaque chose, il y a toute chose r?elle ou possible."(58)

In the bossom of each thing, there resides every other thing real and possible. It is with this bizarre (bizarre after a century of Durkheimean sociology) arrangement of apparently contradictory metaphysics - the denial of higher-level entities (cfr supra) and the recognition that the lower-level entities are always richer in difference and complexity - that we have to familiarise ourselves if we want to understand how much different a Tardean sociology looks from a traditional, Durheimean sociology. Hopefully, any reader can see by now that this (reversed) reductionism could never allow for a border between nature and society, for a demarcation of sciences based on a subject matter, for a rupture between science, for example sociology, and its reflective analysis in terms of epistemology, ontology, philosophy.

vii. how do human societies differ from other societies

Let us track back one or two steps, and deal in some more detail with human societies, not the sole interest of a Tardean sociologist, but interesting nonetheless. If human societies are not specific in the sense that they would be symbolic, or made of individuals, or due to the existence of a macro organisations, where does the specificity of human societies come from?

First and foremost, according to Tarde, human societies differ from other societies because we, humans, see them from the inside out:

"Mais un grave ?cueil se pr?sente quand on arrive aux soci?t?s humaines; ici nous sommes chez nous, c’est nous qui sommes les vrais elements de ces syst?mes coh?rents de personnes appel?es cites ou ?tats, regiments ou congregations. Nous savons tout ce qui s’y passe."(68)

Thus, we should be in a privileged position to notice if higher-level entities emerge and take over, right? Right. But don’t forget that Tarde refuses to accept these entities as the basic ingredient for sociological explanations:

"Or, si intime, si profond, si harmonieux que soit un groupe social quelconque, jamais nous n’y voyons jaillier ex abrupto au milieu des associ?s surpris un moi collectif, reel et non simplement m?taphorique, r?sultat merveilleux dont ils seraient les conditions. Sans doute il y a toujours un associ? qui repr?sente et personnifie le groupe - ((hence the sociology of respresentation))- tout entire ou bien un petit nombre d’associ?s (les ministres dans un Etat) qui, chacun sous un aspect particulier, l’individualisent en eu non moins enti?rement. mais ce chef ou ces chefs sont toujours aussi des membres du groupe, n?s de leur p?re et m?re et non leurs sujects ou de leurs administr?s collectivement. Pourquoi cependeant l’accord de cellules nerveuses inconsientes aurait-il le don journellement d’?voquer du n?ant une conscience dans un cerveau d’embryon, tandis que l’accord de consciences humaines n’aurait jamais eu cette vertu dans une soci?t?s quelconque?"(68)

Quite remarkable, quite radical, right? For Tarde, it is clear that the only reason we believe in emergent properties for the brain of an embryo is because we don’t see the aggregates it links together from the inside. All this is even more remarkable in hindsight, because a century of Durkheimean sociology has taught us to forget about the aggregates that link the human society together from the insight.
Remarkable also, because it takes only a little bit of Tarde to acknowledge that we do see human society from the inside, and that we know for sure that there is no moi collectif since the representative is always one of us, just like us born out of a father and a mother, and simply able to individualise the group in him or herself. For Tarde, societal forces such as ideologies, values, customs, groups of people and classes are nothing more than statistical aggregations, simplifications, sums or abstractions of particular faiths of desires of individuals.
Remarkable also, because it seems clear to us that Tarde would have reacted against the famous sociological motto that the whole is more than the sum of it’s parts. For Tarde, since the smaller is always the more complex and the more explanatory entity, the whole is LESS than the sum of it. A human society, for example, is less than the sum of its aggregates.

But there is more. Tarde describes a second characteristic of human societies, that follows directly from his panvitalism of the infinitely small. Human societies are not only seen from the inside out, they are also made of fewer elements. Not only is the whole, a human society, less than the sum of it’s constituent parts; any human society is also less complex than most other non-human societies. It may run counter to your intuition (conditioned by a century of anthropocentric sociology), but by now it should not surprise you that according to Tarde, a brain, a tree, an atom or a star is far more complex than a human society, because they are made of much vaster collections of monads than human societies. To illustrate his point, Tarde compares China, the biggest human society of his time, with any one of the other societies. Compared to any other society, a society of only 300 millions of elements (the size of China at the time) has barely any significance:

’’Un organisme qui ne contiendrait qu’un ?gal nombre d’?l?ments anatomiques derniers serait n?cessairement place dans les bas ?chelons de la vegetation ou de l’animalit?.’’(64)

Any brain has more elements than China, any drop of water or any speck of dust.

viii. sociologist’ ? faire

However, no sociologist should feel bad about this. On the contrary. This second characteristic of human societies a blessing for sociologists with a special interest in human societies. Because for most societies, only statistical information averaging out billions of interactions can help us give a glance, and it seems obvious to many an observer that there is a huge gap between the atomic element and the macroscopic phenomenon. Not so for human societies. Human societies are made of so few entities that we know for sure that every single macro factor is made out of determined pathways for which there exist thoroughly empirical traces.

To this traceability we will come back in a bit, but for now, let me say again, together with Tarde, that no one in a human society can claim that, in order to go from one interaction to the next, you have to shift scale and go through a something as frightening as a big animal called ’society’, or ’culture’, … . Hopefully by now this seems as obvious to you as it does to Tarde, despite the fact that talks of levels of complexities of higher order, emergent properties, macrostructure, culture, society, race, nationality, … are so omnipresent, that the argument is hard to accept before reading anything of Tarde. Latour (2001) talks in this respect of a Russian doll-complex, that is, an almost natural reflex of ranking interactions from the smallest to the biggest, one neatly into the next. If only Tarde would have won the battle from Durkheim, than it would not sound counterintuitive that the big, the whole is not superior to it convstituent monads. The whole is not more than the sum of it’s parts, it’s less. The whole, the great is only a simpler, more standardised version of one of the monad’s goal which has succeeded in making part of it’s view shared by others. Specifically for the human society, the social is not the milieu where humans grow and live. It is only a tiny set of narrow standardised connections which occupies only some of the monads some of the times. As soon as you leave those tiny networks, you are no longer in the social, but down in a confusing ’plasma’ composed of myriad of monads, a chaos, a brew, that social scientists will do everything to avoid staring in the eyes.
Again, because it is essential if we want to understand Tardean sociology, Tarde does not want to grasp how the big manages to emerge out of the small, but how the big manages to foreground some of its features:

"Si nous regardons le monde social, le seul qui nous soit connu en dedans, nous voyons les agents, les hommes, beaucoup plus diff?renci?s, plus caract?ris?s individuellement, plus riches en variations continuelles, que le m?canisme gouvernemental, les syst?mes de lois ou de croyances, les dictionnaires m?mes et les grammaires, entretenus par leur concours. Un fait historique est plus simple, plus clair que n’importe quel ?tat d’esprit d’un de ses acteurs."(69)

If not yet articulated in a sufficiently illuminating way, do not forget Tarde wrote in Les Lois Sociales :

’’In general, there is more logic in a sentence than in a talk, in a talk than in a sequence or group of talks ; there is more logic in a special ritual than in a whole credo ; in an article of law than in a whole code of laws, in a specific scientific theory than in the whole body of a science; there is more logic in each piece of work executed by an artisan than in the totality of his behaviour." p. 115 LS find French quote

The small, remember is always more complex than the big, and this reversed reductionism Tarde applies convincingly to language, a stronghold of structuralist thinking. Tarde has no problem whatsoever, and understandably so, to put the indisputable difference between langue and parole up for grabs:

"Des homes qui parlent, tous divers d’accents, d’intonations, de timbres de voix, de gestes: voil? l’?l?ment social, veritable chaois d’h?t?rog?n?it?s discordantes. Mais ? la longue, de cette Babel confuse se d?gagent des habitudes g?n?rales de langage, formulables en lois grammaticales."(74)

So no structure beyond or beneath speech acts. None of that. Tarde envisions a sociolinguistics in which structure is only one of the simplified, routinized, repetitive element of one of the locutors who has managed to include his or her local tradition into the general idiom.

Before we argued that the whole is less then the sum of it’s part, applied to human societies, that ’the social’ is less than the sum of its constituent aggregates. Maybe we can even argue that the social is not the whole, but only a part, and a fragile one at that. Because not only is the social only a tiny set of narrow standardised connections which occupies only some of the monads some of the times; it does so on the condition that their metrology be strictly enforced and upkept before being inevitable broken up by the inner resistance of the infinitesimal actants. What we said in general about the material articulation of monads, societies, holds off course also for human societies: every human society consists of consists of components, human beings, other monads, soldiers of their various regiments, that put the ’superior’ monad, the human society, at a constant threat of decomposition. Human beings overspill human society, they escape from the human society they constitute, they revolt, resist, conspire and try to break that society down.

However, Tarde, specifically for human societies, is not advocating the sort of traditional Adam Smith like individualism. Durheimeans never failed to insist that Tarde reduces society to psychology, but Tarde was never interested in individual psychology, in interiority. He was interested in inter-individual psychology, in relations between constituent parts of the whole, between human beings for example in a human society.

It does not take much imagination to see the kind of activity Tarde holds in store for sociologists focusing on human societies. He begins by saying what they should not be doing:

’’It is always the same mistake that is put forward : to believe that in order to see the regular, orderly, logical pattern of social facts, you have to extract yourself from their details basically irregular, and to go upward until you embrace vast landscapes panoramically ; that the principal source of any social co-ordination resides in a few very general facts out of which it falls by degree until it reaches the particulars, but in a weakened form ; to believe in short that while man agitates himself, a law of evolution leads him. I believe exactly the opposite.’’ p. 114 LS find frech quote

A good sociologist, according to Tarde, should not try to go up, to attain a God’s eye viewpoint, try to attain the hugest vista. The social should never become a reified, higher-level entity because we are trying to look at it from nowhere. On the contrary, he/she should look down, be even more down to earth, more myopic, hail the ’oligopticon’ instead of panoptica. The ’big picture’, as Latour (2001) argues, the one that is provided by this typical gesture of sociologists drawing with their hands in the air a shape no bigger than a pumpkin, is always simpler and more localised than the myriad of monads it expresses only in part : it could not be without them, but without it, they would still be something. elaborate

ix. summary

To summarise it in another way: when reading Tarde it becomes clear that mainstream sociology has taken all this time the explanandum for the explanans. They have taken ’the social’ (whatever that may be) as their starting point for explanation, while it should have been clear all this time that the sociological research-agenda should be one of trying to explain the social, that is the societal aspect of any organism. Check this for an polite, yet ironic and devastating attack of Tarde on Durkheim:

’’[My conception], in brief, is almost the reverse of that of Mr Durkheim. Instead of explaining everything by the so called imposition of a law of evolution which would constrain larger phenomena to reproduce, to repeat themselves in some certain identical order, instead of explain the small by the large, the detail by the big, I explain the overall similarities by the accumulation of elementary actions, the large by the small, the big by the detail’’ p.63 LS Find French quote

For Tarde, it is clear that Durheim wrongly took society as the cause instead of seeing that - apart from the fact that it is in many ways the result of sociology, rather than it’s starting point - it is never more than a highly provisional consequence; it is a simpler, more standardised version of the goals of a human being that has succeeded in making part of it’s view shared by others. Specifically for human societies, Tarde does not want to grasp how society emerges out of human beings, but how society manages to foreground some of its features.
So, it is clear why Tarde cannot believe that ’while man agitates himself a law of evolution leads him’. There is no law in social theory that could differ from the monads themselves. It is this distinction between a law and what is subject to the law, no matter how obvious it is for the rest of the social sciences, that Tarde has dismantled with his monadology and sociology.

This complete shift in the epistemology is so brilliant in all his simplicity does not create the problems, binary oppositions from which positivism and modern science still try to recover, to bridge. Tarde’s monadology and sociology short-circuits so many of the bad, modernist, positivist questions about mediations, representations, … questions that have left reflexive modernists stuck up theire own asshole, loosing track of the real world.

A Tardean sociology asks questions about faiths and desires that work on any lower microscopic or microsocial) level, but that are capable of multiplication and amplification of singular and multiple combinations. Therein lies the capacity both for radical innovation, and for co-optation and virulent viral replication.

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