Tarde, Canetti, and Deleuze on crowds and packs

Bibliographic Data

ID2404652
AuthorsA Mubi Brighenti (0000-0002-7498-9857, University of Trento, corresponding author)
Year2010
Volume10
Issue4
Pages291-314
Publication date2010-11-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueJournal of Classical Sociology (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1468-795X • E-ISSN: 1741-2897
PublisherSAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1177/1468795x10379675
OpenAlexW2032414573
LanguageEN
Citations received29
References cited32

A discussion of the works of Tarde, Canetti, and Deleuze reveals some common insights into a social epistemology that rejects both methodological individualism and methodological holism. In this respect, the debate on crowds in the last quarter of the nineteenth century is particularly interesting because it is the historical context within which the individualist and holist epistemologies took shape. Arguably, that debate is still rich and inspiring today insofar as it can be said to open the problem field of the relationship between the individual and the group in social thought and sociological theory. Despite several differences, Tarde, Canetti, and Deleuze converge on a concept that can be termed 'multiplicity'. It includes phenomena like crowds and packs (or 'sects', in Tarde's terminology) that are properly speaking neither subjects nor objects. The concept provides a prism that also has relevant consequences for an understanding of the processes of imitation and leadership

Crowds · Dream · Epistemology · Holism · Individualism · Sociology · Computer Science · Critical Realism in Sociology · History · Law · Management and Organizational Studies · Philosophy · Psychology · Social and Cultural Dynamics

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