La fécondité d’un tournant critique. Malentendus anciens et tendances récentes dans les usages croisés de l’histoire et de la sociologie en France

• Main Author: Thierry Dutour
• Format: Article
• Language: fra
• Published: ENS Éditions 2008-12-01
• Series: Tracés
• Subjects: complexity; Duby (Georges); modernity; Mousnier (Roland); pragmatism
• Online Access: http://journals.openedition.org/traces/643

Joined uses of history and sociology in France have led to misunderstandings. Focusing on the works of Georges Duby and Roland Mousnier, I show that a certain vision of sociology is to blame. Presented as a theory of modernity, it assumes the primitive simplicity of the past, pictures society as a coherent whole and social agents as products shaped by a system. The use of sociology by historians then results in a functionalist, evolutionist and, often, determinist, view of society. On the other hand, refusing to believe in a necessary evolution towards “modern” societies exposes a degree of social complexity that cannot be reduced to arbitrary simplifications. This refusal can help us combine history and sociology around a study of complexity, provided we posit that change is the normal state of any society. Pragmatism and interactionist approaches prove essential when rethinking social links from that perspective.