In Search of an Object: Organicist Sociology and the Reality of Society in Fin-De-SiËcle France

Abstract

Through an examination of French organicism–one of the models proposed for the nascent science of sociology in the late 19th century–this article argues two main points: that organicism was crucial in the establishment of ‘society’ as a scientific object; and that the specific characteristics of this new object were retained by later sociology long after the organic analogies and evolutionary views that justified them had been explicitly abandoned. Organicism played a significant role in establishing a strong notion of society as a concrete, real entity–a notion that had a lasting impact on sociological theory and became one of the most important ‘categories of thought’ of the 20th century.