Chinese Journal of Sociology ›› 2017, Vol. 37 ›› Issue (6): 105-133.

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The Social View of Moral Statistics:Reconsidering the Tarde-Durkheim Debate

LI Yingfei   

  1. Department of Social Work, School of Labor Economics, Capital University of Economics and Business
  • Online:2017-11-20 Published:2017-11-20
  • Supported by:

    This paper is the achievement of "annual scientific research fund of the Capital University of Economics and Business in 2016" project, and it is also sponsored by the fund of "Research Level Promotion Project of Beijing Municipal Education Commission"

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Abstract:

The debate between Gabriel Tarde and Émile Durkheim, the two leading French sociologists of the 19th century, has scarcely been studied. This paper is intended as an in-depth examination of the essence of the debate by means of the statistical method that both Tarde and Durkheim relied upon heavily, in order to reveal the different views between the two on society and the basis of social order. As presented in this study, Tarde attempts to capture the process of social order as a subjective variable in a way of objective probability, while Durkheim, adhering to Adolphe Quételet's tradition of moral statistics, attempts to capture a specific social structure and its normal state of function through purely objective statistical data. The investigation into the statistical method of the two sociologists shows that the disagreement between the two is attributed more to the difference between monadology and holism than that of individualism and holism, since both are critical to the predicaments and social problems caused by extreme individualism. Tarde attempts to transcend social ontology to capture the characteristics of modern society and the basis of its order by the way of monadology. For him, imitation constitutes an important basis of modern order. By contrast, Durkheim stresses social ontology in exploring the social basis of modern society, believing that a new moral system brought about by moral transition should only be understood through the inner structure and form of a society. As demonstrated in this study, it is beneficial to revisit these classical sociologists and explore the social view behind their moral statistics when we try to formulate our ideas about contemporary society.

Key words: statistics, average type, monadology, imitation