Overview
- Focuses on important French author and thinker of the 19th century through an historical and comparative approach
- Connects Cournot’s philosophical and epistemological thinking to the development of sociological theory and thought in the 20th century
- Bridges sociological theory and historical sociology with historiography and philosophy of knowledge
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Table of contents (6 chapters)
Keywords
About this book
The thinking of Antoine-Augustin Cournot has inspired a growing literature in economy and epistemology, but as of yet, his sociological thought has not been explicitly discussed and contextualized within the discipline. From the 1850s to the end of the 1870s, Cournot contributed significantly to the history of French sociology, particularly in the development of one essential idea: that forms of knowledge are intimately linked to the progress of reason. Philosophy, therefore, becomes interested in the development of the sciences, evolving as they do from the process of rationalizing human societies. Cournot’s comparative-historical sociology, “rediscovered” especially by Gabriel Tarde in the 20th century, seeks to understand how a macro-sociological trend can depend on the aggregation of a host individual decisions and actions, or to discern a certain order out of apparent chaos.
Authors and Affiliations
About the author
Robert Leroux is Professor of Sociology at the University of Ottawa, Canada. He is the author of, among other publications, History and Sociology in France (2018), The Foundations of Industrialism (2016), and Political Economy and Liberalism in France (2012).
Bibliographic Information
Book Title: Antoine-Augustin Cournot as a Sociologist
Authors: Robert Leroux
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-04687-3
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan Cham
eBook Packages: Social Sciences, Social Sciences (R0)
Copyright Information: The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG, part of Springer Nature 2019
Hardcover ISBN: 978-3-030-04686-6Published: 18 January 2019
eBook ISBN: 978-3-030-04687-3Published: 08 January 2019
Edition Number: 1
Number of Pages: XVII, 166
Number of Illustrations: 1 b/w illustrations
Topics: Historical Sociology, Sociological Theory, Political Sociology, Knowledge - Discourse