Late Nineteenth Century Lamarckism and French Sociology1

Late Nineteenth Century Lamarckism and French Sociology1 Snait Gissis Tel-Aviv University The transfer of modes of thought, concepts, models, and metaphors from Dar- winian and Lamarckian evolutionary biology played a signiªcant role in the mergence, constitution, and legitimization of sociology as an autonomous discipline in France at the end of the nineteenth century. More speciªcally, the Durkheimian group then came to be recognized as “French sociology.” In the present paper, I analyze a facet of the struggle among various groups for this coveted status and demonstrate that the initial adherence to and subsequent abandonment of “the biological” played an important, but complex, role in the outcome of that struggle. Furthermore, the choice of biological model, whether Darwinian or Lamarckian, had repercussions on one’s position in that cultural ªeld. The outcome of the “battle” between René Worms’ group that supported and contributed to the Revue Internationale de Sociologie (RIS) on the one hand, and Emile Durkheim’s group and those committed to the L’Année Sociologique (AS) on the other—from which the Durkheimians emerged victorious—was due not only to internal scientiªc factors, but also to a particular juxtaposition of developments within sociology and anthropology and their relation to and interaction with French culture and politics at large. 1. The topic of this paper has been treated with much greater depth and detail in a book I have been writing on transfer between biology and sociology. The present paper is a slight elaboration of a lecture bearing the same name, given in December 1998 at the Eighth Sloan Foundation Workshop on “The Nature and Limitations of Historical Knowl- edge about Scientiªc Objects and their Investigators” (Jerusalem). I am very grateful to The Sidney Edelstein Centre for the History and Philosophy of Science and Medicine for a fellowship grant during 1997–1998, which afforded me the time for this research, and to the French Government for a summer grant in 1998, which enabled me to spend valuable time in French libraries. List of Abbreviations: AIIS: Annales de l’Institut international de sociologie; DTS: La division du Travail Social; L’Année: L’Année sociologique; Règles: Les règles de la méthode sociologique ; RIE: Revue internationale de l’enseignement; RMM: Revue de métaphysique et de morale; RP: Revue Philosophique; RIS: Revue internationale de sociologie Perspectives on Science 2002, vol. 10, no. 1 ©2003 by The Massachusetts Institute of Technology 69 Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/106361402762674807 by guest on 30 September 2021 70 Late Nineteenth Century Lamarckism and French Sociology “...[L]es questions sociales...leur appliquer exclusivement les procédés sévères de la science....N’est -ce pas là ce qu’il faut faire pour l’organisme social, comme on l’a si bien fait déjà pour l’organisme humain?” René Worms, “Notre Programme,” Revue internationale de sociologie (1893), vol. I, no. 1 “...[L]e domaine de la sociologie est encore bien mal déªni....la science, parce qu’elle est objective, est chose essentiellement impersonnelle, et ne peut progresser que grâce à un travail collectif.” Emile Durkheim, “Préface,” L’Année sociologique (1898), vol. I 1. Introduction The emergence and establishment of sociology in France as an autonomous discipline was a protracted and contested process at the turn of the twenti- eth century. My paper addresses one aspect of this process: the rivalry between Emile Durkheim and his group—who gathered in the late 1890s around the journal L’Année sociologique—and René Worms and those asso- ciated with the Revue internationale de sociologie.2 The story of the conºict has been often told, and I do not offer a particularly novel analysis of the two communities. However, placing the particular history I wish to eluci- date in the context of the emergence of sociology and of contemporary evolutionary biological models—and focusing on the interrelations between social thought, biological thought, and the politics of culture— yields a fresh reading of certain key texts, and also new insights into disci- plinary formations There existed a complex reciprocal exchange of concepts, models, and metaphors between evolutionary biology and emerging sociology, and these proved crucial for their establishment as scientiªc disciplines. The 1890s are crucial to our understanding of these complex and often tortu- ous relations between the two domains in France. As I shall show below, in the latter part of the nineteenth century, biology played a vital role for sociologists, molding their programs, methods, practices, and even their self-image as scientists. Late nineteenth century social thought has often been viewed as domi- nated by Darwinian Evolutionism. Yet Lamarckian Evolutionism was at least as signiªcant for contemporary sociology.3 Moreover, the very exis- tence of supposedly two contrasting “kinds” of evolutionary theories, dis- 2. I shall not elaborate though on the category or “race.” 3. I presented these arguments in my Ph. D. thesis on “E. D. Durkheim as a Founder of a Scientiªc Discipline: On an Image of Science at the beginnings of Sociology in France,” Tel Aviv University, 1996. Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/106361402762674807 by guest on 30 September 2021 Perspectives on Science 71 tinct in their “socially translated” presuppositions (and implications), helps explicate the complex relationship between social-political Weltan- schauung and the adoption of a speciªc scientiªc stance.4 Indeed, evolutionary biology in late nineteenth century France played a constitutive rather than a merely heuristic role in the emergence and establishment of sociology. The contemporary cultural ªeld witnessed a tense rivalry between groups competing for the coveted status of “French Sociology” in general, and the “Sciences de l’Homme” in the universities in particular. Several groups within well-established disciplines, such as history or philosophy—or within newer ones, such as anthropology and psychol- ogy—sought a dominant position. They strove to establish new positions and degree tracks in the universities, or to form new educational institu- tions to cater for sociology. The strife for hegemony caused a scramble for dominance, or at least a more conspicuous presence in the world of journals, and the “weaving” of supportive political networks. The Durk- heimians emerged victorious from this struggle and left an indelible im- pact on sociological (and anthropological) thought. Here, I shall only discuss certain aspects of the French “ªrst generation struggle,” in which concepts, models, metaphors, and analogies from evo- lutionist biology played a crucial substantive (and not merely rhetorical) role. But their role in the very constitution of sociological theories and their methodological underpinning was even more signiªcant. They helped draw the boundaries of the new discipline and delineate its unique- ness vis-à-vis other “social” disciplines.5 Sociologists drew on Lamarckian or Darwinian evolutionism as a “reservoir” for concepts and models for 4. Darwin’s Origin was ªrst translated (with a heavily ideological introduction) by Clemence Royer in 1862. Another translation of the Origin into French appeared in 1864, diverging in the principal terms. From the single direct quote in Durkheim’s work it is hard to tell which edition he had actually read, assuming that he read it sometime in the mid-eighties. Later editions emphasized much more of the Lamarckian mechanisms than the ªrst one. 5. My assumption here is that metaphors are tools of cognition in the process of map- ping one conceptual domain on to another. This process is crucial when new ªelds emerge, new theoretical vocabulary and tools are developed, and interact with already existing ones, or when the scientiªc ªeld is “reproduced” for new generations of scientists. Metaphoric transfer establishes both similarity/suitability and a difference between two domains. The “logic of transfer” depends on the cultural-scientiªc context of that transfer, on whatever appears “plausible” for speciªc individuals, and does not appear “arbitrary” to their audi- ences, since both groups are based on social-institutional practices. The character of this migration had changed between the 1870s and the 1890s. But it could take place only within a cultural context that allowed for the assumption that there is a fundamental cor- respondence between organic nature and social life, between the mechanisms of develop- ment, primordial units and types of lawfulness in both domains. Thus sociologists could present their emerging ªeld as fundamentally similar and yet as uniquely distinct. Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/106361402762674807 by guest on 30 September 2021 72 Late Nineteenth Century Lamarckism and French Sociology many reasons, including how contemporaries interpreted the political- ideological implications of both theories, and what their academic and cultural status was. My analysis of the battle between the Durkheimians and Worms’s supporters demonstrates that the recourse to Lamarckian theory was indispensable for the Durkheimians’ predominance. My narra- tive encompasses both the contexts of the scientiªc communities and of the cultural ªeld at large. It hinges upon a delicate juxtaposition of changes in scientiªc theory—biological and sociological—and cultural-political changes. 2. The role of the

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