Gabriel Tarde

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Gabriel Tarde

Gabriel Tarde , also: Gabriel de Tarde (born March 12, 1843 in Sarlat , † May 13, 1904 in Paris ) was a French criminologist , sociologist and social psychologist . After studying law in Toulouse and Paris, he worked as a judge in his home town of Sarlat for nineteen years. Then in 1894 Tarde was appointed head of the criminal department. However, Tarde only held this position for six years before he was appointed professor of philosophy at the Collège de France .

His main works were created during his time as a legal advisor . The two works La criminalité comparée (1886) and Les lois de l'imitation ( The Laws of Imitation , 1890) are central . The latter book eventually made him famous. Here Tarde represented and founded a (philosophical) sociology that contrasted with the social-scientific efforts and findings about the school of Émile Durkheim . Its sociology is based on small psychological interrelationships between individuals whose fundamental influences are imitation and innovation .

Life

Initially quite successful and respected (e.g. with Ferdinand Tönnies ), Tarde was marginalized by the influence of the Durkheim School and was almost forgotten for a long time. It was only rediscovered through the prominent place it occupies in the work of Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari . Even Bruno Latour and Peter Sloterdijk refer to Tarde. His position can best be characterized as the theory of pre-rational, passionate, affective social energies and forces; He emphasizes the collective and pluralistic dimension in every social union, every social institution , every language and every code, whereby this supra-individual-energetic dimension is not to be thought of as abstract social that would have to be contrasted with the rational-individual . This thought leads Tarde to an analysis of those laws of socialization that are located between the objectified social system and the individually conscious decisions or compulsions, on a so to speak chaosmotic level (such as the laws of imitation, the wave movement or the universal Repetition).

Tarde's works have been reissued in France since 1999 under the direction of Eric Alliez.

The laws of imitation

The two most important terms in Tarde's theory of imitation are " invention / discovery " and " imitation ". This allows Tarde's theory to be roughly characterized.

Invention / discovery

Definition according to Tarde: “By these two terms I understand any innovation or improvement in any kind of social phenomenon such as language , religion , politics , law , industry or art ” (Tarde, 2003: 26).

The invention has a rather accidental character and is basically contingent. That is, the invention could have happened one way or another, or not at all. It is crucial, however, that an invention structurally restricts, but also expands, the possibilities of further inventions. The point is that several inventions would always be possible at the same time and that each invention limits the bandwidth of the possible connection, but at the same time also expands it and thus makes new things possible that were previously not possible.

Tarde describes the invention as the center from which imitation begins. Most of the time, when the invention emerges, its significance cannot be assessed. This means that only through the imitative spread do new social issues arise. An example: If an invention is made in a quiet room and is destroyed before it can be communicated, it has absolutely no social relevance.

imitation

Basically, Tarde speaks of different forms of imitation: naive / deliberate imitation; Instruction; Upbringing ; Obedience . These form the basic unit of society.

The society is defined by so-called "imitation chains". “Imitation” is used as a very broad term in this context. It not only means that ideas are imitated (i.e. something is repeated in the same way as the other), but also that ideas always follow on from ideas that already existed: New ideas / discoveries / inventions are “built up from elements of earlier imitation (...), and from these compositions, which in turn are imitated and become new elements of more complex compositions, it can be concluded that there is a pedigree of these successful initiatives ”(Tarde, 2003: 69). According to Tarde, imitations usually go from an inside to an outside , i.e. H. first the inner attitudes of the imitators change, only later do their expressions change into rites, fashions and works. Thus “in this aesthetic, ritual or purely habitual simulation of past convictions or needs, the exterior of the imitation of the interior survives. (...) It still lives on on the surface, however, it is continually reduced in size and destroyed until a new soul suddenly appears. "(Tarde, 2009: 227f.)

In order to obtain social laws, the social scientist should therefore orient himself to these 'chains of ideas' and not to outstanding events.

The decisive factor in the present concept of imitation is its high degree of inclusiveness. Any social issue can be interpreted as imitation. In this way, not only similarities but also differences can be explained by imitation: In this context, we speak of “imitation with a negative sign”.

Fonts

  • La criminalité comparée (1886)
  • La philosophie pénale (1890)
  • Les lois de l'imitation (1890) (German, translation Jadja Wolf: The laws of imitation , Frankfurt a. M .: Suhrkamp, ​​2009, ISBN 978-3-518-29483-3 )
  • Les transformations du droit. Étude sociologique (1891)
  • Monadologie et sociologie (1893) (German, translation Juliane Sarnes and Michael Schillmeier Monadologie und Sociologie , Frankfurt a. M .: Suhrkamp, ​​2009, ISBN 978-3-518-29484-0 )
  • La logique sociale (1895)
  • Fragment d'histoire future (1896)
  • L'opposition universal. Essai d'une théorie des contraires . (1897)
  • Écrits de psychologie sociale (1898)
  • Les lois sociales. Esquisse d'une sociologie (1898) (German, translation by Hans Hammer: The social laws. Sketch of a sociology , Marburg: Metropolis Verlag, 2009, ISBN 978-3-89518-739-1 , edited and with an afterword by Arno Bammé )
  • L'opinion et la foule (1901) online
    • German translation Horst Brühmann: Mass and Opinion , Konstanz: Konstanz University Press, 2015, ISBN 978-3-86253-062-5
  • La Psychologie Économique (1902).

literature

  • Arno Bammé: Gabriel Tarde and the “Laws of Imitation” , in: “ Tönnies-Forum ”, vol. 18, 2009, no. 1, pp. 5–28
  • Arno Bammé (ed.): The social laws. Sketch of a sociology. Metropolis
  • Christian Borch, Urs Stäheli (Ed.): Sociology of Imitation and Desire. Materials on Gabriel Tarde , suhrkamp taschenbuchwissenschaft, Frankfurt am Main 2009, ISBN 978-3-518-29482-6
  • Pietro Semeraro: Il sistema penale di Gabriel Tarde , Padua 1984
  • Realino Marra: Tra pena infamante e utilità del reato. Tarde contro Durkheim, ovvero l'espiazione della colpa a fondamento del diritto criminale , in: Dei Delitti e delle Pene , III-1, 1985, pp. 49-92.
  • Jürgen Howaldt, Ralf Kopp, Michael Schwarz: On the theory of social innovations. Tarde's neglected contribution to the development of a sociological theory of innovation. Beltz Juventa, Weinheim; Basel 2014. ISBN 978-3-7799-2727-3

Web links

Commons : Gabriel Tarde  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ The small encyclopedia, Encyclios-Verlag AG, Zurich, 1950, volume 2, page 726
  2. Gabriel Tarde and the end of the social [1] (PDF; 178 kB) by Bruno Latour
  3. Hartmann Tyrell: "Intelligence is when you steal" in: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung; September 25, 2003, p. 38