Comte After Positivism (1996) is an important book in the revival of Auguste Comte that has taken place since the 1990s. One of the key arguments is that John Stuart Mill’s polemical & often misguided criticisms of Comte led to the neglect of Comte and laid down the framework for logical positivism.

Andrea Caffi (1887–1955) was an obscure but influential figure. A participant in the 1905 Russian Revolution, wounded in WWI, imprisoned several times, and tortured by fascists in Italy, he led a fascinating life and wrote many works, which have been undergoing a revival in Italy.

Happy Comte day! Today, the 19th of the month of Moses (according to the Positivist calendar), is the bday of Auguste Comte. Former secretary to Saint-Simon, founder of positivism & sociology, & self-proclaimed High Priest of Humanity, he shaped modernity in more ways than we tend to acknowledge.

The British Positivists ensured a lot of Comte was translated. Lots of big volumes sitting in libraries now. Sidney Olivier and Sidney Webb bonded at a reading group looking at The Positivist Catechism in a room the size of a cupboard in No. 10 Downing Street.

Happy Proudhon day! Not only was he a pivotal influence on Socialism, Marxism, Anarchism, and Mutualism, but also Sociology, Philosophy, Federalism/Confederalism, and arguably even Economics and International Relations.

Sometimes I can’t help but think that Marxism’s attempt to go beyond the “utopian socialisms” ironically resulted in the most utopian form of socialism around.

Correct. There is actually very little of Saint-Simon’s, and French socialist thought more generally, that has been translated into English. With the exception of Comte’s work, the English world has never taken much interest, despite it all fundamentally shaping the way the world has developed.

International Law is the 2025’s biggest joke

Four years ago today, the wisest person I ever knew passed away. She never attended school, drove a car, or swam, but somehow turned out more in-tune with reality than anyone else I’ve encountered. I will forever be profoundly impacted by my limited time with her. Rest in peace Hajiya.

I haven’t finished it yet but I’ve been surprised by how good this is. I just happened to stumble on it in an used bookstore. It’s really a collection of the writings of the German-American sociologist Werner Cahnman (1902-1980), who notably was a Jew who was in the concentration camps at one point.

Timasheff was the only one who really developed Petrazycki’s ideas for the sociology of law continue to be an “illustrious unknown” in the field despite having published his book (though many quote his work) in USA. Perhaps too ambitious for his time The link between Gurvitch and Parsons was Pound.

I find the exiled Soviet sociologists, namely Sorokin, Timasheff, and Gurvitch, particularly alluring. While well-known in their day, all of them slid into neglect following their deaths and were overshadowed by Parsons, who none of them appreciated, probably because of how he outmaneuvered Sorokin.

Review of Saint-Simon’s recently published Correspondence by @thomaslalevee.bsky.social. The work being reviewed was edited by Pierre Musso, who is probably the leading Saint-Simon scholar today. www.tandfonline.com/eprint/GT7XF...

Durkheim’s biggest shortcoming imo is that he almost exclusively treats society as something external to the individual. For example, he argued that social facts exert a “pressure” onto individuals. He misses the internal aspects of society, namely how social facts can “fuse” to individuals.

Henri de Saint-Simon turns 265 today.

Here’s a good one and probably the best critique of sociological positivism around. Rather than theology and philosophy culminating in a sharply differentiated social science, Solovyov emphasized the holistic connection between them and how all three needed to be kept in dialogue.

We published the open access article 'Organized Callousness: Gaza and the Sociology of War' by Siniša Malešević and Lea David in our forum on Israel-Palestine on May 11. tinyurl.com/st55f868

I used to know some people who argued that all social interaction ultimately sought to find a “smooth flow”. At the time, I bought the argument. Now, I’m convinced that this view loses sight of the contradictory nature of social life, namely that people often have conflicting social bonds.

In case you missed it, my review of @emilyherring.bsky.social's terrific bio of Henri Bergson is #1 at the Los Angeles Review of Books right now. It’s my love letter to the GOAT of philosophy—take a seat and have a chat with him here 👇 lareviewofbooks.org/article/when...

Learned recently that both the Marxist theorists Henri Lefebvre and Maximilien Rubel completed their doctoral theses under Georges Gurvitch. It’s noteworthy to me since Gurvtich had such an unorthodox interpretation of Marx, essentially claiming that he was a Proudhonized Saint-Simonian.

Too bad Beesly and Marx never wrote anything together. I would be fascinated to see how sociology would have played out with a Positivist-Marxist synthesis approved by Marx.

New #sociology paper on Mauss, total social facts, and bridging bio-psycho-social accounts www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

I think this is such an important book at this moment in time. It describes our current situation better than any other that I'm aware of. Collectively, and not just in the US, we are headed down a very dark path.

Now available for advance ordering and/or free download… Anarchy in Alifuru: The History of Stateless Societies in the Maluku Islands by Bima Satria Putra www.minorcompositions.info?p=1596

Proudhon’s Critique of Nationalism in His Federalism Vision by Lingkai Kong (2025) www.mdpi.com/2409-9287/10...

Apparently in the late 19th century, some Jewish anarchists held Yonkiper beler (“Yom Kippur Balls”) antireligious festivities.

You can now download the book on the publisher's website: press.umich.edu/Books/P/Publ... (open access of course)

Short recent article on the influence of Charles Fourier on the surrealist movement following WWII, particularly through André Breton, who is generally seen as the leader of the movement. A PASSIONATE ATTRACTION for Charles Fourier. TOWARDS A NEW SURREALISM 1942–1969 by Fabrice Flahutez (2024)

New full English translation of Proudhon's "The Principle of Federation" by Lingkai Kong - t.co/pRR97CgTLB

New publication: 'Beyond Elias and Tilly: Historical Sociology, Crime and Organised Violence', with the free access here: www.researchgate.net/publication/...

"Souls are blended into things; things are blended into souls. Lives are blended together, and so it is that the persons and things that are mixed each emerge from their own spheres and blend with each other: this is precisely what contract and exchange are." —Mauss

An amusing 2011 interview with Edward Tiryakian. He discusses how we was introduced to sociology through Garfinkel, studied under Parsons (& even reflects on once using the urinal next to him), got caught in the Sorokin-Parsons drama, & discusses a variety of figures in American & French sociology.

“Two forms of modern thought, which are closely allied, though not necessarily confounded in the same men, positivism and socialism, really spring from Saint-Simonism…. [I]t prepared the way both for socialist rhetoric and sociological studies.” —Sébastien Charléty

Right. Is there a single pre-Durkheimian French social theorist taken seriously today? A whole century of thinkers have been relegated to the dustbin of history, despite their pivotal positioning as heirs to the failed French Revolution and as the originators of the concept of ‘social science’.

TIL that only 15% of works published in the US between 1923 and 1963 renewed their initial copyright that lasted for 28 years, which means that 85% of the works from those years are now in the public domain. Starting in 1964, copyrights automatically renewed after the initial 28 years.

Academic publishing in a nutshell. It’s apparently a fair trade to most academics to give their work to companies who charge astronomical prices for it in exchange for individual prestige. There is a kind of feudalistic vibe to it.

I’m only on the Foreword of this book and I can already tell that I’m going to love it. One of the things I hate about contemporary social science is the endless accumulation of empirical evidence with almost no regard for attempting to synthesize it by constructing grand theoretical frameworks.

I can finally share a complete, if rough draft translation of Pierre Leroux's "Equality," together with a draft of the first few sections of its sequel, "Humanity." They are linked from the Pierre Leroux / Doctrine of Humanity project page. www.libertarian-labyrinth.org/pierre-lerou...

Another paradoxical aspect in contemporary sociology is the denial of the concept of progress, yet the implicit assumption of progress within the field. Returns to classical theory are widely seen as contradictory to this progress. Foundational thinkers like Saint-Simon are thrown into the wind.

Sociologist Jan E. Stets on seeing and being seen: "One Thing I Know: Identity Verification Is Important to the Self" Free to read, download, and share through 8/11: journals.sagepub.com/doi/epdf/10.... #sociology #identity #identityverification

The paradoxical aspect about studying classical socialist thought is how their analyses resemble those of the “hard” positivistic sociology of today, but their conclusions resemble those of the “soft” social justice wing of sociology. With the exception of Marx, all of sociology ignores them today.

Late post but excited to finally see my chapter in the book Theory Reimagined: Voices of Sociologists from around the World. Check out the book here: frontpagepublications.com/book/theory-...

Andrew Lang published Method in the Study of Totemism in 1911, James Fraser Totemism & Exogamy in 1911, Gérard Lucas The Vicissitudes of Totemism in 1911, Durkheim The Elementary Forms of Religious Life in 1912, Freud Totem & Taboo in 1913… The study of totemism apparently had a moment in the 1910s

Here's a draft of the introduction I wrote for the English edition of Célestin Bouglé's (1911) landmark book "The Sociology of Proudhon". Comments and criticisms are welcome. jumpshare.com/v/rKxdTEzxo5...

Somewhat interesting that in the early 1900s, the Durkheimians added a ‘socialism’ rubric to their journal L’année sociologique with the intent of advancing “the sociological theory of socialism.” In essence, they sought to study the socialist movement from a “purely scientific point of view.”

[EXPO] Parmi les expôts remarquables de l'exposition "Auguste Comte et Saint-Simon", cette édition originale du "Plan des travaux scientifiques nécessaires pour réorganiser les société" d'Auguste Comte, paru à nouveau sous le titre de "Système de politique positive" en 1824).

Just received a copy of the anarchist sociologist Sal Restivo's latest book "The Treachery of Realities: Safeguarding Truth in the Age of Science Denial". It appears to be a pretty timely publication in the age of Trumpism. I'll try to fit the massive table of contents into four images.

JUST published (free access) Full article: Warrior ethos and the spirit of nationalism www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

While I think society can be described as a “being”, I don’t think a biological analogy, like Spencer used, works. There are too many contradictory elements that are in a constant state of conflict. And this is true even for societies that appear more “simplistic” in comparison to ours.

Thanks Cayce! Full text also available here: openresearch-repository.anu.edu.au/items/e67128...