Organicism and Complexity. Notes for a Chapter on Socialism and Natural Sciences (France, first half of the nineteenth century)

Working paper d'Andrea Lanza

In the perspective of the history of ideas, this working paper focuses on the theoretical relationships between the social science and natural science in the context of Parisian early Socialism. This working paper deals with the influence of epistemological models (“encyclopedic” approach and analogical approach) in the first phase of French social science; then, it examines how this context articulate the scientific understanding of society with the social and political action. These pages aim to highlight how the organicistic model, developed in the 1830s and 1840s, assesses the complexity in the field of knowledge of society.

The author

Doctor of Political Studies, EHESS, Paris, historian of political thought, Andrea Lanza devoted an important part of his researches to the question of the emergence of the first french socialism and its social roots in the Paris of the first half of the nineteenth century. Interested in democratic society and its historical deployment, he devoted another part of Its work to the theoretical debates of the twentieth century and current, with a particular attention to the constellation of political thinkers linked to the intuitions of Claude Lefort.

Reference

Andrea Lanza. Organicism and Complexity. Notes for a Chapter on Socialism and Natural Sciences (France, first half of the nineteenth century). FMSH-WP-2015-96. 2015.